Have any of you had a chance to try any of the new Progesso Recipe Starters Cooing Sauces? I had an opportunity through MyBlogSpark to try all five of their new sauces. They even sent me a gift card to buy additional ingredients, the cute wooden spoon pictured above, and a little recipe booklet with a fairly quick and easy recipe using each of the sauces.
Since "quick and easy" is my middle name in the kitchen, the concept of having a sauce pre-made and seasoned and ready-to-go really appealed to me. The results, for us, were a little bit mixed.
The first recipe I tried was the creamy lemon chicken, made with the Creamy Roasted Garlic cooking sauce. I wanted to like this so much that I actually went out and bought another can of this sauce and tried it again. Maybe I seasoned my chicken too much, or added too much lemon juice, but we found this a little salty and just okay tasting.
The second one, I wanted to try was the pulled chicken made with the Fire Roasted Tomato cooking sauce. For this recipe, you basically add sugar, worchestershire sauce and seasonings to this canned sauce to turn it into a barbecue sauce to add to pre-cooked chicken. I honestly couldn't see the point in this one, because it would be quicker and easier to just use a bottle of good quality barbecue sauce. I make a killer oven or stove-topped barbecue chicken with bottled sauce and few extra dashes of this and that, so I probably wouldn't bother with this one. I would use the sauce, but would be more likely to use it in a pot of chili or taco soup, or spaghetti sauce.--maybe even in lasagna.
The recipe that was recommended with the Creamy Three Cheese cooking sauce was more of the same--use their sauce as a base, add milk and seasonings and cheese--if I'm going to be heating milk and adding cheese, I'm making a cheese sauce--what do I need theirs for? What did work for us for this one was ignoring the suggested recipe and using it "straight" on some pasta to make a basic mac & cheese. My son voted a thumbs up on the simple version.
But I'm saving the good news for last--the Creamy Parmesan Basil--this was by far our favorite. It's a truly stand-alone sauce, good over almost any kind of pasta by itself, and also as recipe base for chicken alfredo, pasta bake, or white chicken pizza, just to name a few. I bought this one to try again, too, and I'll definitely be adding it to my grocery list again.
Final result--I can heartily recommend the Creamy Parmesan Basil, as well as the Creamy Three Cheese. The others I would try again, but probably with a different recipe--speaking of which, you can find all of the recipes I got in my little booklet, as well as many alternative ones to try, at the Progresso website. There are also come coupons available right now, both for Recipe Starters sauce, and for the Progresso Light soups.
Disclosure: The information, products and ProgressoTM Recipe StartersTM gift pack was provided by Progresso through MyBlogSpark.