I’m thinking about introducing pastas into the store. It seems with the additional customers subs has produced, menu expansion is a good boost to significantly increase sales. However, if I were to do pastas in my store it’d have to be operationally efficient. Who’s selling pastas? and can you give me some tips on efficient preparation?
Thanks in advance,
J_r0kkI do about 10% of my sales in pastas.
We portion control both pasta (par cooked) and the sauces in plastic take away containers.
When we get the order we heat water in a saucepan and put the sauces in the microwave. When water boils drop pasta in for about 2 minutes or until it gets back to the boil and leave boiling for 1 minute. Strain and put in container pasta was in and pour heated sauce over it.
Best option is to have both in one cotainer and then defrost and heat in microwave. I haven’t worked out a way to do it quality wise as yet.
Dave
Dave,
Thanks for the quick answer. Also, one thing I forgot to mention: The only thing I’ve got to cook with (besides the microwave), is a Middleby Marshall pizza oven with a class 2 hood system. That might change some things, would it not?
-J_r0kk
When I was kicking around the idea of adding pasta, I bought a plug-in single-burner “stove” to do some tests with - just sits on a countertop. Cost about $100 and I think a two-burner model was available.
Just break it out before the business comes, cook your pasta, then put it away. Wasn’t very stable though, so safety might be a concern.
Edit: Oh, and then put the pasta and sauce together in an aluminum tin and run it through the pizza oven to finish cooking/reheat. Maybe add a bit of cheese to the top. Yummy - I may have to go perform some more ‘experiments’ for lunch today.
my mom is my prep so she does everything homemade from lasagna to souces … and we bake all the dinenrs and the pasta entrees we grill
i would say 50% pizza and 50% subs (we bake our bread too) salada, pasta
or i tall depends one night pizza night one night only the pasta station hahha
when we did not have burner just conveyor oven we did lasagna we got the lasagna noodeles with the cheese in them already put sauce in 7 " foil pan covering the bottom with sauce then one lasagna sandwich more sauce other lasagna sandwich, meat veggies etc. more sauce top with cheese run through oven once little parma slap lid on it add two breadsticks out the door 5.95 when i go to work today ill get the brand of the lasagna its pre made and works and taste good sell the fire out of it in the cold months.
I do spaghetti and lasagna, and I only have my conveyor oven. I put the noodles (pre cooked) in the tin, slather with sauce, top with cheese and run through the oven. It’s great, customers love it and I charge 4.99 for it. My cost? about .60!
Lasagna I get pre made. Top with some sauce and cheese and run through oven. Quite good. Get 5.99 for that. Cost? 1.68!
you can buy pre-cooked pasta…micro for 60 sec.
there are some decent red sauces, like stanislaus…
Minor’s has an excellent alfredo sauce base that you can reconstitute via the micro as well…
I use 5x7 foil containers…micro all & top w/mozz & run thru oven w/breadtix
Raises Hand in air “Pick me, Pick me!”
We sell pasta and we don’t have a range or cook top. I do have one of the double burner hot plates that Brad was talking about, and I’ve used it in the past… but not anymore. Now I buy a precooked frozen penne pasta and use that. I slack out the pasta in the walk-in. Put it in a 9" round foil container, put the sauce in it and run it through the MM360 oven for 8 minutes at 440. I have 2 sauces right now. Marinara and Alfredo. I also have cajun seasoning that we use to make a cajun chicken pasta. Next week I hope to get a pesto sauce and do a pesto pizza, as well as a pesto pasta.
We price it as a base with just sauce and noodles, and let people add on. A marinara, cheese and meatball pasta is 8.49 – which has 4 - 1.5 oz meatballs in it. Base pasta is 5.99 and the cajun chicken one I was talking about which is cajun seasoned alfredo, onions, and green peppers is 7.99.
I suggest you try the frozen pasta and see if demand is there for the pasta.
-Scott
I agree with Scott. that’s what I did at first. Once I saw the demand, I started doing my own. Much cheaper!
Jim,
Eventually they all come to the fork dinners to make $$ 
You can build your own lasagna and run through the conveyor. I buy frozen sheet pasta, and use my own sauce, ricotta, etc. I build in a 1/4 pan (i believe) and bake it in oven, then portion and freeze/chill. Microwave with more sauce or meat-sauce to order. If you have individual portion containers, like Pactiv paper bakeware, you can build individual portions and bake through the conveyor.
There are some pre-made cheese/noodle lasagna products out there that could work for you, as well as stuffed shells. The trick is slacking the right number so that they don’t spoil, but you have enough . . . like everything else. You can micro the frozen stuff, but takes longer and more skill.
Frozen pastas these days are far far better than even 5 years ago. Get one and try it out. I recommend making a plain red sauce and a meat-sauce that has some of your sausage and beef chopped up and mixed in. Then, you get two pastas for one effort. There are fine frozen alfredo sauces out there, but the cost is really high per serving when you look at making your own. Get one and see how it flies. You can always go to making your own when the time is right.
Pasta Dinners for me is about 12% of my sales. We precook the pastas (Spaghetti, Penne) and have it ready to go in the fridge. We have a pot with boiling water on the stove, and drop the pasta into a strainer into the hot water. Pull it out, let it drain and put it in a tin and sauce it up and send it out. Very simple. Also very profitable. The pasta will usually stay 2-3 days in the fridge before it starts to go bad.
Careful, Pasta prices have jumped recently.
Hope this helps…
I have tried so many spaghetti sauces and by far the best one is a sysco label- Aldo Marinara spaghetti sauce (with basil).
It is the best, I go through 6-10 cases per week.
Man we make our own marinara sauce for our pastas.
Everyone says its the best they have had in a restaurant. Its very simple to make and very cheap. I want to start jaring it and selling it. If any of you guys want the recipe i have no problems sharing. Dont settle for that pre made crap. Its so simple to make it takes about 20 mintues to make out batch using six #10 cans of crushed tomaotes.
I am not joking it is awesome!!!
hey jim
here is what i do
first i went and bought one of these
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. … _id=888144
i cook the spaghetti for 9 min then run cold water over them to stop the cooking portion into sandwich bags
cook the fettucini for about 13 min and portion put both in makeline
we leave the kettle on the cut table filled with water set at warm on the thermostat
when we get an order we just turn it up up to 400 starts boiling in about 30 secs
submerge them in the strainer for about 30 secs for spag and 45-60 secs for fett
put in 7" round and cover with sauce that we have set up in warmer
hope this helps
dennis
everyone here does homemade from scratch or? i cant imagine buy everything ready to go …
I did a premade, frozen lasagna product to start off with. It was very popular . . . of course, when I started making my own in house, it got REALLY popular. It took some time to commit to making and storing the homemade product. It was a good decision at that time . . . at outset, it would have led to lots of waste.
What equipment do you use to make it?
I start with a steel bowl and rubber spatula, then baking pan, and deck oven. Cool to warm and then chill in cooler. Slice into portions, wrap in plastic and use microwave or deck oven to reheat for service.
Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you meant you make your own pasta noodles.