This $5 Aldi Product Moonlights As A Convenient Soup Base

We consider pasta sauce and soup to be two separate things, but if you think about it, they're really not that different. After all, we toss pasta into broth all the time, and who hasn't spooned up sauce soup-style after their noodles were gone because it tasted so good? You can bridge that gap by combining the two, using Aldi's Specially Selected Vodka Pasta Sauce, which sells for $4.29, as the base for soup.

The Aldi house brand sauce, usually used for penne alla vodka, or "disco pasta," is made from Italian tomatoes, heavy cream, olive oil, onion, parmesan and Romano cheeses, garlic, vodka, basil, and oregano. The key step in its soup crossover is thinning the sauce. Chicken or vegetable stock or broth are ideal, though you could also use beef or mushroom stock for more depth of flavor. Add the stock to the sauce instead of the other way around, and eyeball it until it's thinned to the right consistency. It's better to err on the side of a little too much stock, because you can always cook it down.

You can saute aromatics like carrots, celery, onion, and garlic in the pot first for more flavor before pouring in the vodka sauce and stock. Everything is already cooked, so the soup won't need to stay on the stove very long. However, you do want everything to boil together for a bit so the flavors meld.

One of the best parts of making soup is that there are few limits on what you can put in it. If you want a protein in this case, the Italian flavors would work well with crumbled sausage, shredded chicken, Italian wedding soup-style mini meatballs, cubed ham, cannellini beans, or chickpeas. Any meats should be cooked separately before adding them.

Vegetable options are even more wide open, with leafy choices like spinach, kale, or escarole, or vegetables often used in minestrone, such as green beans, zucchini, or peas. If you're using mushroom broth for thinning, double up with sliced creminis or portobellos. Add a little extra stock to the sauce if you cook the pasta directly in the soup instead of separately, since it will need to boil longer. Another idea is to stir in torn pieces of Italian bread for a take on pappa al pomodoro, the Tuscan tomato and bread soup.

Finish each bowl with a sprinkling of grated parmesan or Romano cheese and, depending on the ingredients you chose, perhaps a dollop of ricotta. Enjoy with a glass of wine to keep the Italian vibe going, but skip more acidic or tannic reds like Chianti or Montepulciano, which you should never pair with vodka sauce.