REVIEW: Bertolli Premium Champignon & Portobello Mushroom Pasta Sauce

While it’s impressive that it takes only 90 seconds to heat up the Bertolli Premium Champignon & Portobello Mushroom Pasta Sauce, having to wait 10-15 minutes for the noodles to be prepared pretty much defeats the purpose of the sauce’s quickness, unless you don’t eat noodles because you’ve been following the Atkins Diet religiously since 1999 and think that noodles are the devil’s pitchfork poking at your pudgy sides.

The instructions to heat this bag of pasta sauce was extremely easy. All I had to do was cut off one of the top corners of the bag to let it vent, stick it in the microwave for 90 seconds, dance during those 90 seconds, let it cool down for a minute and then pour it over my pasta of choice, which is either linguine or whatever that pasta in Spaghetti O’s is called.

But perhaps the instructions were too easy. I don’t know about you, but I like a little excitement when I’m cooking or warming up food. The chance of something exploding, me getting hurt or staining my clothing is quite exhilarating. That’s why my nipples get stiff whenever I see Benihana chefs go at some food with knives or when someone deep fries an entire turkey in a huge pot of boiling oil.

However I am thankful I can kick it how my grandma used to kick it and heat it on a stove. I won’t be able heat it up in 90 seconds, because unfortunately my stove goes up to 11 (Yeah, that’s right. I just dropped a Spinal Tap reference).

The pasta sauce was piping hot as I added it to my linguine noodles and there’s enough sauce for three servings. It was slightly chunky and there were small bits of mushrooms, but there weren’t huge slices like what’s shown on the front of the package. Even with all of those small bits of mushrooms, I could hardly taste them over the tomato sauce. Overall, it was a tasty pasta sauce, but I think if there was more of a mushroom flavor, it would’ve been even better.

The sauce may have been good, but I think I would prefer pasta sauce that comes in a glass bottle not only because it provides 2-3 times more pasta sauce than this product at the same price, but also because if I drop the bottle there is a good chance that I might get hurt, it will explode, and I will stain my clothes.

Oh! Just thinking about it almost made something else explode.

(Nutrition Facts – 1/2 cup (about 3 servings per bag) – 80 calories, 4 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 450 milligrams of sodium, 10 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, less than 1 gram of sugar, 1 gram of protein, 60% Vitamin A, 15% Calcium, 10% Vitamin C, and 10% Iron.)

Item: Bertolli Premium Champignon & Portobello Mushroom Pasta Sauce
Price: $2.50 on sale
Size: 13.5 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Tasty sauce. Slightly chunky. Convenient and really quick to warm up (90 seconds). Danger in the kitchen. Can also heat on a stove. The pasta in Spaghetti O’s.
Cons: No big slices of mushrooms, only small bits. Light mushroom flavor. Pasta sauce in bottles provide 2-3 times more sauce at the same price. Champignon is not the same as champagne.

9 thoughts to “REVIEW: Bertolli Premium Champignon & Portobello Mushroom Pasta Sauce”

  1. I haven’t had this kind, but I have had products from this manufacturer before, and they’re pretty good but I think they’re also overpriced. If it was on sale though I might pick up some…but I usually just get two servings per bag and not three.

  2. Maybe if you bought mushrooms, chopped them, and added them to the sauce you will feel like you accomplished more?

  3. What I don’t get about these types of products is: If you buy the stuff in the jar all you have to do is put it into a microwave-safe bowl and do the exact same think you’re doing with the bag. Aside from price inflation I don’t really see the difference.

  4. @Chuck – Bertolli products are like Apple products — good, but I wish they were cheaper.

    @Heidi – Or if I bought a particular type of mushroom, chopped them up, and then added them to the sauce, I will be able to see unicorns jumping through hoops of fire.

    @neil – It’s a type of mushroom that gets mistaken for champagne.

    @gko – I think I’m going to take a break from dance videos. I promise the next video I make will not have any dancing in it…because I don’t have anymore moves.

    @Jeanette – This product causes me some internal conflict. The lazy part of me loves that I can just stick the entire bag in the microwave and that’s it. But the treehugger in me thinks the bag is a horrible way to distribute a product because it will just sit in a landfill for years.

  5. Have you ever actually dropped a glass jar full of marinara pasta sauce? For some reason – perhaps it’s the acidity in the tomatoes – it really does EXPLODE! It’s both extremely exciting and entertaining, yet extremely upsetting at the same time, knowing you gotta’ clean all that blood-red Ragu off the kitchen cabinets and appliances.

    That would make a great heavy metal music video: just play the music in the background, while in the shot, do a slow-motion of glass jars of marinara repeatedly exploding as they hit the ground. Perhaps from a high rise as they just barely miss pedestrians as they walk on the sidewalk below. Meanwhile the pedestrians don’t even notice a thing. Those surreal types of videos.

  6. I looked up the word champignon; it just means mushroom! So basically you just ate tomato sauce with mushrooms. How adventurous.

  7. @Pomai – I actually have dropped a bottle of pasta sauce because I have fingers made of butter, WD-40, and KY Jelly. It’s a pain to clean and for weeks I’m afraid of stepping on glass that the vacuum didn’t pick up.

    @Molly – That how I roll.

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