Mom's Spaghetti Pasta Sauce Review: A Painfully Ordinary Addition To Pasta
Eminem has joined the ranks of musicians breaking into the food world. With Snoop Dog's Dr. Bombay's Ice Cream and Patti Label Pies, amongst others, Eminem is in good company.
While some musicians may choose products that don't seem to have any direct tie to that star's work, Eminem hit the nail squarely on the head with Mom's Spaghetti Pasta Sauce, which receives its title from the early 2000s hit "Lose Yourself" featured in the movie also starred Marshal Mathers, "Eight Mile."
This isn't even the first time Eminem has capitalized on this incredibly quotable line. In 2021, Eminem opened a restaurant, also called Mom's Spaghetti, in his home city of Detroit, MI. As you can probably guess, the restaurant serves spaghetti, as well as two sandwiches which also feature spaghetti or spaghetti sauce. And yes, Mom's Spaghetti is the sauce from that restaurant and the related pop-ups.
Mom's Spaghetti promises to taste like leftovers. This is a unique marketing take, but we all know some foods simply taste better the next day. There are certain chemical processes that happen when food is heated, cooled, and then reheated that just make some foods improve with a bit of time. We will be the judge of whether Eminem can deliver. After decades of hearing about references to "Mom's spaghetti," we were excited to get our hands on some.
A simple recipe
Mom's Spaghetti keeps the ingredients simple and low-key. According to the card that accompanied our package, this is the same sauce the company has been making since the first pop-up opened in 2017.
The ingredients include tomato puree, tomato paste, water, onions, sugar, garlic, carrots, canola oil, spices, salt, and red wine vinegar. The jar immediately lets you know that this pasta sauce is not trying to create an authentic Italian sauce. Instead, the goal is to create homestyle Detroit pasta sauce. This is not supposed to be a fancy, expensive sauce made with extravagant ingredients. Quite the contrary, the only fresh ingredients in this sauce seem to be the onions, carrots, and maybe the garlic. In a way, it makes you wonder why you aren't just making the sauce yourself, but we all love an easy-to-grab jarred sauce.
The jar recommends pairing the sauce with pre-cooked leftover spaghetti, heating everything in a pan, and serving with a side of Texas garlic toast. Just the way mother used to make it.
The shocking price tag
Given the homestyle and down-to-earth promotion of this pasta sauce, as well as the unpretentious ingredients, the price tag of Mom's Spaghetti is simply staggering. A single jar is $13 and a two-pack is $25. That is a lot of money to spend on fairly basic jarred spaghetti sauce. That price doesn't even take into account the cost of shipping. All in all, a single jar of Mom's Spaghetti costs $23, and considering it is not available in stores, you have no choice but to pay for the shipping.
The price is even more surprising when you consider other factors, such as the Mom's Spaghetti restaurant being fairly reasonably priced, especially considering the recent hike in the cost of food. A large plate of Mom's Spaghetti at the restaurant costs $11, which is less than the price of a single jar of sauce, and the whole thing is ready-made for you. Sure, there are six servings in the jarred version, but you still have to cook before you have spaghetti.
Getting your hands on it is hard
As we mentioned, there is only one way to get this sauce outside of the Detroit restaurant right now, and that is by ordering Mom's Spaghetti online. We were among the lucky few who ordered when it was first available, which means we got our jar. As of the time of this article, both the single and double jars are completely sold out. As an added bonus, our original shipment date was way back in October. The sauce shipping kept getting delayed until it finally appeared on our doorstep in December.
Obviously, there is a huge demand for this sauce, even with the high price tag. So we hope going forward, the company will make this sauce more available, especially without the exorbitant shipping price. That way, it can be available to the everyday people for whom they claim this sauce is. With the strong response and how quickly the first batch sold out, we feel confident the company will want to make more and ship them to everyone looking for a taste of Mom's Spaghetti.
Nutrition
There are not too many surprises when it comes to the nutrition in Mom's Spaghetti. Each serving size is half a cup, which means the 25 oz jar contains six servings. Each serving has just 60 calories, which is low even by pasta sauce standards. Brands such as Rao's tomato sauce contain 100 calories per serving despite the serving size being the same.
There is also less sodium and fat in Mom's Spaghetti. What Mom's Spaghetti does have more of, though, is sugar. There are seven total grams of sugar in Mom's Spaghetti, whereas Rao's has just four. While this may concern some, adding a small amount of sugar to pasta sauce is not uncommon to cut the tomato's acidity. Plus, some Ragu sauces have just as much sugar, even without adding any additional sugar to the mix, so it really is not that outlandish. While Mom's Spaghetti may not be adding much in terms of nutrients to the daily diet, it certainly isn't making anything actively bad.
Final verdict
For a pasta sauce that markets itself as a sauce for the average person, the price sure is high. And after trying it, we cannot figure out why.
Mom's Spaghetti isn't bad, but it is uninspiring. It is so painfully ordinary. In a way, the company is delivering on its promise. This pasta sauce does indeed taste like leftover dinner. The thing is, that does not warrant the price tag. This pasta sauce doesn't taste any better than the regular grocery store pasta sauce out there, which you could buy a case of for this price.
The sauce is plain, not heavily spiced, and a smidge on the sweet side. Perfectly fine, and it sticks to the noodle. It does what it needs to and nothing more. It feels almost disingenuous to sell this sauce at its current price, especially when a wealthy musician is the one profiting. We don't doubt that this sauce tastes like the one Eminem and so many of us ate growing up, but is this a sauce the average person is going to be able to afford to buy? Plus, if you are in the market, there are much better jarred sauces that are worth the money, all of which also taste great as leftovers.