Metro

$35 for jar of pasta sauce? Count your pennes!

Mamma mia! That’s a lot of money to mangia.

At $35 a jar, Sunday Gravy is the most expensive pasta sauce in town — and the price tag is giving some people agita. “You’re kidding me, right?!” belched one Facebook poster. “Who in their right mind would pay $35 for sauce?”

The ruby-red delicacy costs far more than celebrity blends made by Mario Batali ($7.80), Lidia Bastianich ($6.80) or Rao’s ($8).

And it’s more than double the $16 for a plate of pasta with meat sauce at Eataly’s La Pasta or even a $22 penne with veal and pork ragu at Il Buco.

It’s even pricier than a $34.99 steak with french fries at Peter Luger’s.

But saucy chef Steven Smith said there’s a reason his gravy is more expensive than celebrity-chef brands — it’s just better. “If someone doesn’t know the product and isn’t seeing it and tasting it, they compare it to an $8 jar like Rao’s,” he said. “That’s a tomato sauce versus braised meat and tomato.”

Smith and his business partner, Grace Clerihew, slow-braise pork shoulder and beef chuck for six to eight hours before adding it to a plum-tomato sauce with basil, onions and garlic. Mini-meatballs and sliced sausage are also tossed in the aromatic mix.

Smith’s fresh gravy has only a one-week shelf life.

The sauce is sold exclusively at West Elm in DUMBO where a 32 oz. bottle can be had for the bargain price of $25.

It’s $10 more on the company’s Web site because of packing costs, Smith noted.

Smith said his gravy is a labor of love.

His mother, Concetta DiPalma, stood over the stove marrying meatballs, braciole, and pork with tomatoes each Sunday, he recalled.

“When it was time to eat, Mama would declare the gravy was done, we’d know it was done because my mother would yell over to my aunt, ‘Put on the water.’”

His father, Irish longshoresman Michael Smith, loved Sunday dinners so much that even in the oppressive August heat — during the few weeks Mama would break from making gravy — he’d long for the sauce.

“[My father] would be so disappointed,” he remembered.

“It’s the real deal,” he said.

And it may be coming to a store near you.

Traditional Italian Sunday dinners seem to be dying out, but his gravy left people feeling nostalgic for the family meal, Smith said.

“There was a young woman in West Elm in DUMBO who said this reminds me of my nonno who passed away and then she brought her mother the next week,” he said.

Sunday Gravy is in talks with companies like Whole Foods and Fresh Direct, and a retail store is opening this month at DiPiero’s Farm in Montvale, New Jersey.