New Year, Old Traditions ft. Ragu

We love our family dinner times! But, sometimes we don’t always eat the best. We are guilty of being lazy and ordering fast food a few too many times haha. My husband and I decided with it being a new year, we are going to make more of an effort to cook more from home. That brought up another resolution for us: not only should we be cooking at home more, but we want to strive towards eating better foods. What we love about Ragu pasta sauces is the fact that not only are they affordable, but they are filled with real ingredients (no artificial flavors here)!

Traditions are very important to us and now after being married for a year, we definitely want to make more of our own family traditions. We have made it a new tradition for us to cook together on Mondays. We are huge suckers for italian food and decided a good ol’ spaghetti and meatballs would help start off the new year! My grandma has made this for our family for years and it feels so special to continue the family traditions into our own. We used our favorite Ragu pasta sauce for this recipe and if you haven’t tried this flavor, I strongly suggest you do! We usually go for the Ragu traditional sauce, but after having the tomato, garlic, and onion we want to try all of the flavors now! (Can that be it’s own new years resolution? Please? haha) 

What you need:
–Ragu Pasta sauce (any flavor of your choice!)
-Spaghetti noodles
-Meatballs
-Salt
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And that’s it! Let’s get started!

1. Start by putting the stove on medium.
2. Put a separate pan, filled with however much water the pasta calls for, on the stove top and put it on medium high.
3. Pour your Ragu sauce in and let it warm up.
4. After about 2-3 minutes add in meatballs, lower the temperature to about low medium and cover! *Depending on what kind you buy though, just make sure you buy meatballs that are already fully cooked and can be cooked on the stove top!
5. When your water begins boiling in the second pan add in those spaghetti noodles.
6.Once your noodles are cooked strain them and pour in your meatball and Ragu sauce mixture. I like to do this rather than serve them separately because I really feel like the noodles soak up the delicious pasta sauce.

For other awesome recipes by way better cooks than me, click here and tell me if you try any out!

Just smelling all of this food, reminded me so much of being in my grandma’s house! It made me miss home so much, but it makes me happy to know my husband and I can carry on traditions right in our own kitchen.

I wish that you guys could smell how yummy this is. After cooking the pasta, I combine theRagu pasta sauce and meatballs to the noodles. I like to give it some time to kind of incorporate all the flavors together!

We can most definitely get used to eating this during the new year!! It turned out so amazing and I seriously have to credit it to the sauce. We’ve tried a few other brands, but we always come back to Ragu. I’m so happy we found this particular flavor. I know it seems weird to rave about the sauce, but besides the amazing flavor, it comes along with an amazing story! The creator Assunta hand crafted these sauces back in 1937 in her basement! She had the passion and drive to make her own recipes and they were passed down from generation to generation, and eventually to our plates! There is just something so fulfilling about cooking for your family and sitting around the dinner table with your loved one(s). 

With this new year, make it a time of creating new traditions! Cook more and eating more healthy are two of our top resolutions. I would love to hear your own New Years resolutions below! Make this new year one to remember! Thank you to Ragu for sponsoring today’s post and inspiring me to pass on my family traditions. Check out other recipes here or by clicking the hashtags #simmerintradion + #Ragu
​From our family to yours, 
The Strattons