---
title: 'Do Expensive Groceries Make Better Spaghetti and Meatballs?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=fjXHi3MFdtU'
video_id: 'fjXHi3MFdtU'
date: 2026-07-23
duration_sec: 928
channel: 'Ethan Chlebowski'
---

# Do Expensive Groceries Make Better Spaghetti and Meatballs?

> Source: [Do Expensive Groceries Make Better Spaghetti and Meatballs?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=fjXHi3MFdtU)

## Summary

This video explores whether expensive groceries actually make a better spaghetti and meatballs dish. The host compares budget-friendly and high-end versions of the same recipe, analyzing cost differences and conducting a blind taste test to determine which ingredients are worth splurging on.

### Key Points

- **Experiment Setup** [00:43] — The host compares budget vs. premium ingredients: $2 vs. $7 canned tomatoes, $1 vs. $6 spaghetti, $4 vs. $9 ground beef, $1 vs. $5 milk, etc.
- **Cost Tracking Metrics** [01:50] — Three metrics: total cost from scratch, cost after deducting common pantry items, and biggest price differences for individual ingredients.
- **Grocery Price Differences** [02:31] — Specific price comparisons: spaghetti $1 vs. $5.98, tomatoes $1.96 vs. $6.68, ground beef $4.88 vs. $9, tomato paste $0.97 vs. $3.28, milk $1.38 vs. $4.97, cheese (Parmesan) jar vs. aged.
- **Total Cost Breakdown** [03:43] — High-end version: $89.94 from scratch, $46.87 after pantry items. Budget version: $55.51 from scratch, $27.30 after pantry items. Per serving: high-end $6.46, budget $2.87.
- **Cooking Process** [05:52] — Meatballs made identically with half pound each ground beef and pork. Sauces differ mainly in canned tomatoes: San Marzano vs. generic.
- **Sauce Differences** [07:24] — San Marzano sauce: deeper red, thicker, sweeter. Generic: thinner, more acidic. Host added extra tomato paste to balance generic sauce.
- **Blind Taste Test** [09:55] — Host blindfolded and tasted both dishes. Noted texture differences in pasta (bronze cut vs. regular) and sauce flavor (fruity vs. basic). Meatballs were similar.
- **Recommendations: Save Money** [12:06] — Save on ground beef and spaghetti. In meatballs, flavor differences minimal due to other ingredients. For pasta, texture matters but not worth high-end for this dish.
- **Recommendations: Worth Spending** [13:44] — Spend on canned tomatoes (packed in puree) and Parmesan Reggiano. These significantly improve sauce and garnish flavor.

### Conclusion

For spaghetti and meatballs, expensive ground beef and pasta don't make a big difference, but quality canned tomatoes and aged Parmesan are worth the extra cost. Knowing how to use ingredients is as important as the ingredients themselves.

## Transcript

grocery prices lately, but no one's really showing you how to navigate the store or put a list together that fits your budget. And that's what this series is all about. We'll be taking the same exact recipe, in this case spaghetti and
meatballs, and shopping for budget friendly versus more expensive options of the same ingredients and making two versions of the dish to compare side by side. And in our final taste test here, the question isn't simply which one of
these tastes better, but more importantly, it's what ingredients make the biggest difference in the flavor of this dish, and are they worth that extra cost, or could you potentially cut them to save some money? So, let's break it
down. We aren't going to be adding truffles or gold leaf for the sake of making dishes expensive. I'm talking about the basic choices we all face in the grocery store. $2 versus $7 canned tomatoes, $1 versus $6 spaghetti, $4 per
pound versus $9 per pound ground beef, and $1 versus $5 milk. Because these choices week over week add up significantly. And most people assume the more you spend, the better the food will taste. But the reality is that some
ingredients may make a huge impact while others barely matter depending on the dish that is being made. So, in order to put together our grocery list, let's talk about the dish. And I'm making a pretty classic Italian Americanstyle
meatball. We've got the basics of ground pork, ground beef, breadcrumbs, milk, onion, eggs, spices, and then for the tomato sauce, we're doing a simple and olive oil, red pepper flake, oregano, a little bit of fresh basil,
recipe will be linked down below if you want to check it out. Now, to test our idea, I pulled together a grocery list with our basic items, and I'm going to duplicate it and keep track of a few things. First is the total costs from
single item from scratch, how much would it cost? Second is the total cost if you deduct the common pantry item. Because part of saving money on individual grocery chips is learning to stock common items. And then third is the
biggest price differences for individual ingredients. So like what has the biggest increase on a recipe basis? For example, I need to use the whole can of tomatoes for this recipe, so I have to spend an extra $4.84. 84. However, these
two bottles of olive oils are about $7 difference for the whole bottle, but on a recipe basis, I'm using a very small amount of each. So, it's only about 9 cents of difference for the recipe. So, let's head to the store and I'll show
you what I bought that had significant differences in price. First up, we have pound of spaghetti for about a dollar, then a single heritage grain one for $5.98. Next, we have the tomatoes, which I
Next, we have the tomatoes, which I bought some Sento San Morzanos at $6.68 versus just $1.96 for a basic whole peeled tomato. For the ground beef, I bought a $9 8020ium premium ground beef versus some ground chuck that was 25%
off because it needed to be sold. So, it ended up only being $4.88 per pound. Tomato paste was $3.28 for a tube versus 97 for a bigger can. Then for the milk, I went with $4.97 compared to a store brand that was just $1.38 for a quart.
Then for the cheese, I got 24 month age parmesan reo as well as the craft green jar. Then there are a bunch of other items I got that didn't warrant buying a only one option for things like panko breadcrumbs, ground pork. I grabbed an
onion and a couple of other things. Okay, so now that I've got all of these groceries and I do have some shared items, let's look at the overall price breakdown. So, first up, if you were to buy every ingredient from scratch in a
completely empty kitchen, you had absolutely nothing. The high-end version comes out to $89.94 and the budget version comes out to $551. Now, that seems outrageously expensive,
obviously, but if you deduct a lot of these common, you know, pantry and fridge items, things like the spices or your salt, obviously you're not buying a that, the price comes down substantially. If you deduct the common
pantry staples, you get $46.87 for the high-end and $27.30 on the budget end. And I bring that number up because the real cost you end go grocery shop or a recipe. It's likely going to be somewhere in the middle. I
whole new bottle of olive oil or milk or a whole new dozen of eggs and things like that. And honestly, I could have made this whole pile way more expensive. I did decide to use shared spices because I could have got like $8 jars of
spice versus like $2 jars of spices. I could have used like the $10 thing of salt instead of this, you know, I think like $3 thing of salt. But I think there if you're looking for the best value,
because it's going to give you that same high quality but just without the exorbitant cost that you get from a lot of those kind of individually, you know, sourced spice jars. That being said, our prices get even lower when we look at
how much we need for the actual recipe and the serving size of the dish for just what I'll need on the recipe. On the high end is $25.85 the high end is $25.85 and on the budget side is $1146.
And if you further break it down into servings, which I think you can easily get four really good servings out of this with two big meatballs and then about a quarter pound of pasta, it comes out to $646 per serving on the high end
and $287 per serving. And here is a table showing the biggest price increases based on the total dollar amount as well as the percentage increased. Okay, but now here's where things get
question like which of these ingredients are going to have the biggest differences in the flavor of our dish. So, let's make our meatballs and sauce, you back here and at the end of the video, I'll give you my top two
trying to save some money and the top two ingredients that I think are worth spending money on to make better tasting spaghetti and meatballs. For the meatballs, I made them identical with a half pound each of the ground beef and
ground pork. And you can see that slight difference in color of the beef. Then I can see the difference in color, the onion, breadcrumbs, parmesan, milk, the spice mix, and the fresh parsley before mixing those up and forming them into
our meatballs. And I made nine fairly large meatballs out of these. and I just place them onto a baking tray before sliding both trays into the oven at 400° sliding both trays into the oven at 400° F to roast and cook until about 155°
internal. For the two sauces, I started by adding butter and olive oil to a pan over medium heat. Then I tossed in some cracked garlic cloves, red pepper flake, and oregano, and then let all of that bloom before tossing in 30 g of each
tomato paste. Once cooked up, I tossed in each canned tomato and lastly a quarter of an onion and let that all simmer down for about an hour. Now, for these sauces, I did use more expensive olive oil, butter, and tomato paste. But
by far, the most important ingredient here is going to be the canned tomatoes. And I found that San Marzanos packed in tomato puree have a thicker and slightly sweeter taste compared to a generic whole peeled tomato packed in water.
Okay, so anytime you are making a pasta sauce, spaghetti and meatballs, you want to do some final adjustments. And I am already seeing some differences um in our sauces. First is the color. The San Marzanos um had that deeper dark red.
Again, they have tomato puree and stuff in there. These are a little bit um more wrong with this. It's just it's just a sight. Then texture-wise, this one is definitely a little bit thinner compared to the ones that were packed in that
tomato puree. And as far as taste goes, I would say a little bit more um tomatoey in this one. Um both need a little bit of salt for sure. And then what I'm going to do, like part of this um experimentation is like
understanding the limitations of your ingredients. So, in the beginning, I added equal parts of both of these, but now that I'm actually tasting this product, what I'm going to do is add some extra tomato paste into this one to
a little bit of more of that kind of tomato feels like pretty acidic right sugar concentrated down in there. Um, so we're going to stir that in for our final little adjustment. And, you know, that should get us a little bit better
limitations of the ingredients you have. same, but if you know how to balance them correctly, that's just as valuable ingredients or you don't want to buy
them. So, let's cook up our pasta, serve up our spaghetti and meatballs, and really talk about some of the differences in the final dishes. Lastly, we have the biggest price difference in a single ingredient, which is the pasta.
differences in aroma when you're eating pasta plain, but the biggest difference we're most likely going to see is in the texture. So, let's cook the pasta and assemble our final bowls and see what stands out the most between these. So,
pans over medium heat, then tossed in the partially cooked pasta along with a spoonful of each sauce to continue cooking that pasta right in the pan. finishing touch to each and stirred everything together so that basil slowly
starts to impart the aroma. To plate these, I attempted to spin the pasta around the tongs in hopes of plating it nicely, but it worked just okay. Lastly, top it with two meatballs from each of the sauce and finish with our cheeses.
The green bottle of Parmesan versus some fresh parmesan reano. How different will these be? Let's give them a taste. Okay, so I have been looking forward to this taste test. I am going to blindfold up, but just so I can kind of focus really
Obviously, we can see there's some slight visual differences here. Little bit of a lighter color, a little bit of a darker color. So, let's blindfold up and uh give these a taste and see like which ingredients are going to make the
biggest impact. Is it the texture of the pasta, the texture of the meatballs, the aromomas of anything in there? So, let's see what we got. I think I'll start with a pasta bite only.
only. [Music] nice addition if you're making these at home. kind of get the, you know, the green cam pre-graded parm. It it you get that taste kind of right away. You kind
of know that that's what it is. Um, let's go to the meatball. let's go to the meatball. [Music] think I would maybe make a couple tweaks. Maybe a little bit more needs
something like that. But let me kind of compare to this guy over here. Try to compare to this guy over here. Try to get a little pasta.
the the bite of the pasta. It's not chewier in like a bad way, but just a feel like you get a lot of times. I've done numerous tests with kind of bronze is definitely a textural difference
right away. And then as far as the sauce goes, I would say too, definitely more kind of fruity tomatoy, which is really nice. All right, let's see what the nice. All right, let's see what the meatball's like. All right. Meatball
texture. I would say a little bit more a little bit more bite. taste and aroma goes. I mean I use the same spices everything. So they are very similar. I think most people would be pretty
surprised how good both of these dishes really are. Even though there is like a fairly big difference in the price, the things like butter, the milk, the egg It's really just a core couple of
ingredients that make a big difference. Okay, so let's do a quick summary of the recommend saving your money with and the top two ingredients that are worth spending on for your spaghetti and meatballs. Okay, so if you were looking
to save some money, I think the first two ingredients that I would take a look at are the expensive ground beef and then your expensive spaghetti. And here's why. From a flavor perspective, while you might notice a difference in
your ground beef if you were eating a plain burger, when there is ground pork, salt, spices, tons of aromatics, and you have the same fat level in your ground notice much of a difference other than maybe a slight textural change. You
know, I would assume that most Italian restaurants are not using hyper premium like grass-fed, grass-finish, or Wagyu ground beefs for their meatballs. It's probably just not economical to do so, especially from a flavor perspective.
to buy ground beef. You know, maybe you want to get pasture-raised, maybe you free to spend your money as you please, as always. But from purely just like a going to notice much difference here. And it's a similar idea with the
spaghetti. From a texture perspective, I would look for the cheapest bronze cut pasta you can find, but I wouldn't go and get something super super high-end meatballs because again, the pasta is
This may work well in something like Alio where the pasta is a little bit more of a key ingredient, but for spaghetti and meatballs, it's really other than maybe a slight textural difference, you're just not going to get
much kind of flavor for your money in this case. That being said, the two ingredients that I think can significantly upgrade your spaghetti meatballs quickly are the canned tomatoes and parmesano reano. If you've
never tried a tomato packed in tomato puree, I would highly recommend looking for these at the store. It just creates that kind of sweeter, more balanced, more tomatoey sauce. Then lastly, we have the Parmesan Reiano, which is just
a very unique taste compared to, you know, this grated parm. You know, this is aged for like 24 months versus this is kind of made very quickly and then time. Now, if you're used to this, like nothing absolutely nothing wrong with
this. But since this is added typically in the meatballs and then right as a garnish to the top of our pasta, it immediately kind of hits your tongue, hits your nose. So buying some Parmesan Reiano does make a significant
difference and really make it feel a little bit more premium and much more enjoyable. That being said, you can honestly make spaghetti meatballs however you want to. Hopefully you realize that whether you go with all
ingredients, or somewhere in between, really knowing how to use those ingredients is just as important when it comes to making a great dish. But me in this one. The grocery list as well as the recipe will be linked below if
meatballs. I'm excited because I've got a lot of leftovers now. And then also dishes you might want to see next. I've got this idea for kind of a cheap or a budget versus a more premium cheese steak. Um comparing maybe like a
pre-shaved beef that I can get at the store. So I think that's going to be a anyway, that'll wrap it up for me in this one. I will catch you all in the this one. I will catch you all in the next one. Peace y'all.