What Adrienne Cheatham Wishes You Knew About Mom Guilt - Exclusive

Chef Adrienne Cheatham's partnership with Our Pantry is breaking the mold. This woman-owned and operated company, founded by Carolyna De Laurentiis, strives to make a product that not only tastes great, but is nutritious and not filled with preservatives and refined sugar. De Laurentiis was inspired to create the brand as she became a new mom during the pandemic. As someone with a love of cooking and making things from scratch, she felt as though she was cheating when she reached for a jar off the shelves, a feeling of guilt that was only made worse by the long list of ingredients that find their way into most jarred sauces. 

As many working moms know, though, sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day. De Laurentiis tapped the resources of talented chefs such as Adrienne Cheatham to create the new line of sauces that anyone could feel good about using. Cheatham had always turned down previous offers for direct-to-consumer products. She told Mashed in an exclusive interview that the reason she chose Our Pantry was its mission. Cheatham states, "That was the most important factor, working with people who care about what they're doing, who care about where things come from, and finding people who are doing things the right way."

Cheatham and De Laurentiis have an important message for those experiencing mom guilt around using jarred products.

As a sauce that uses only high quality traceable ingredients, Cheatham said the sauces are of restaurant quality, adding that they can be used as is, or doctored up. "This can help cut down some of that prep work ahead of time by giving you something that can be the finished product." Either way, moms can feel good about what is being put on the table and get it out quickly. 

De Laurentiis notes, "We felt like, as a brand, that was a massive opportunity to give people the confidence to actually say, 'Look, my wellness and my time and everything else is more important to me, so I'm going to be excited about reaching for this sauce [from] my pantry because I know it was made by a top-tier chef, so the quality and ingredients and the flavor [are] going to be on point.'" 

Every ingredient used to make Our Pantry sauces has a traceable origin and a reason for being there. For moms, as De Laurentiis says, they can trust that Our Pantry is doing the "heavy lifting."

If that sounds like a shortcut, that's the point. The people behind Our Pantry aren't here to add to the oppressive guilt moms already feel; they want to embrace making life a little easier. 

"We're trying to celebrate the shortcut," said De Laurentiis. "I felt that when I would reach for a sauce from my pantry, or I spoke to lots of friends and potential customers about this, and everybody felt like anytime they'd reach for a sauce from their pantry, it was like they were doing it to save time because they hadn't gotten it together to make something from scratch. But they never felt great about it for whatever reason. Maybe it was the product itself, or maybe it was the act of having taken the easy way out."

There is no need to feel ashamed about taking the shortcut toward a good meal, and together with Adrienne Cheatham and their other chefs, Our Panty is creating preservative-free and guilt-free products.

Our Pantry's full line of sauces is now available for sale from OurPantry.com.