Lasagna is one of the many Ukrop's Kitchen foods that's prepared with our Signature Marinara Sauce.

In honor of Columbus Day we’re sharing some Italian-style recipes and information about the Italian foods from Ukrop’s Kitchen this week. To start, we thought we’d talk a bit about why our Signature Marinara and Pizza Sauces are so good.

The only way to make a premium tomato sauce is to start with fresh, juicy tomatoes. Ukrop’s executive chef Tom Pearce went all the way to California to find the special vine-ripened tomatoes we use. “Our tomatoes are only harvested for three months out of the year at the height of their growing season,” Pearce says. Once the fresh tomatoes are picked, they are canned within six hours, ensuring that Ukrop’s sauce contains fresh flavor year round.

The tomatoes are pureed with special combinations of herbs and seasonings to create the Signature Marinara Sauce and Pizza Sauce. Both sauces are created in a chilled state in order to preserve as much ripe tomato flavor as possible: “The more you cook a tomato, the more it loses flavor,” Pearce explains.

Ukrop’s tomato sauces are used in our Italian chilled prepared foods and Ukrop’s Bakes such as Baked Spaghetti, Manicotti, Lasagna and Chicken Parmesan, as well as on all our red-sauce pizzas. Both the Signature Marinara Sauce and the Pizza Sauce are also available for sale alone for use in your special recipes. Look for them in Kitchen area of your store.