The Best Store-Bought Pasta Sauce You Can Buy at the Grocery Store in 2023, According to Our Taste Test
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In an ideal world, we’d spend the whole day traipsing around the house while our homemade tomato sauce simmers on the stove for a whopping 12 hours. In reality, we’re lucky if we have 30 seconds to crack open a jar of pasta sauce and dump it atop some spaghetti. In the event of the latter, you’ll want to use a quality sauce that offers from-scratch flavor—minus the work. To save you the trial and error, we tested dozens of offerings from popular brands to bring you our list of the best store-bought pasta sauce to use on busy weeknights. Whether you’re a marinara loyalist, Alfredo stan or pesto devotee, our top picks are sure to have something that fits your taste and budget.
The 5 Best Store-Bought Alfredo Sauces, Based on Our Taste Test
The Best Store-Bought Pasta Sauce of 2023, at a Glance
How We Chose the Best Store-Bought Pasta Sauce
We tried all the store-bought pasta sauces warm, both solo and on pasta. Before we dive into our favorites, here’s how we determined the best store-bought pasta sauce for every palate:
Read on for the seven best store-bought pasta sauces, according to our taste test.
1. Carbone Tomato Basil Sauce
TOTAL: 92/100
Ever wondered what the difference is between marinara and tomato sauces? The former is brighter, thinner and boasts a fresher tomato taste, while the latter is typically thicker and creamier. Carbone's iteration delivers with large pieces of basil throughout. Its herbaceous aroma and zesty, robust flavor is exactly what you seek, whether you need a dip for mozz sticks or a pizza base. It is marinara, but we still found the sauce a tad runny. Nevertheless, it held to the noodles pretty well.
2. Lidia’s Marinara Sauce
TOTAL: 92/100
OK, our grandma was a native New Yorker who didn’t know how to boil water, but someone’s grandma probably makes a sauce just like this. Celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich has bottled her famous sauce recipe, and she doesn’t skimp on the high-quality ingredients. We're talking Italian plum tomatoes (you'll find fleshy bits and seeds in every bite) that make the sauce bright and pleasantly acidic. It could be thicker, but it sticks to pasta pretty well. It’s notably garlicky, so you might want to have some gum on hand.
3. Bertolli Vodka Sauce
TOTAL: 91/100
You know the drool-worthy type of penne vodka you used to scarf down at every sweet 16 party? This Bertolli sauce tastes just like that, with its very cheesy, kid-friendly flavor profile. Its creamy, thick consistency helps it hang onto pasta with ease, while its reasonable price will earn it a permanent spot on your grocery list. Our one critique is that it's a bit one-note, but that's nothing a few shakes of dried herbs or crushed red pepper flakes can't fix.
4. Rao’s Homemade Alfredo Sauce
Rao's/Background: amguy/Getty Images
TOTAL: 91/100
Rao's won our Alfredo sauce taste test. It exceeded our expectations with its rich mouthfeel and cheesy flavor. Cracked black pepper gave the sauce a homestyle touch. It was a tad thin, but still stuck to the pasta without running off. As for ingredients, it's made with light cream, Parmesan and Romano cheeses and butter, plus egg, xanthan gum and cornstarch for richness and thickening. It's a bit pricy, but if you’re looking for a jarred Alfredo sauce that tastes like you made it yourself, it won't disappoint.
5. Prego Basil Pesto
TOTAL: 91/100
For the uninitiated (if that's you, get your hands on some pesto...like, right now), pesto is a paste that's traditionally made from olive oil, crushed garlic, pine nuts, fresh basil and hard cheese. This one is very cheesy and herbaceous with an optimal dose of vegetal earthiness. It separates a bit when heated, but clings beautifully to pasta. Some may find it a bit *too* salty, so feel free to thin it out with a touch of cream or pasta water to balance the flavor.
6. Rao’s Homemade Arrabbiata Sauce
TOTAL: 92/100
Arrabbiata is a spicy Italian tomato sauce that's made with dried red chili peppers. This one from Rao's has a drool-worthy aroma, a precursor to the sauce's tame-but-noticeable tingly heat. Studded with hearty chunks of tomatoes, the vibrant sauce clings well to pasta, but we found it a touch watery for our taste. If you want to tame its spice, mix in a dollop of ricotta cheese (or alternatively, up the ante with a spoonful of Calabrian chili paste).
7. Good & Gather Three Cheese Sauce
TOTAL: 92/100
Picky kids don't stand a chance against this savory pasta topper that will stick to their favorite noodles with ease. It's a bit sweet (almost ketchupy, without being cloying) and offers scattered chunks of tomato in every scoop. It's not the freshest tasting pasta sauce of the bunch, but at $2 a pop, it's something cheese lovers will likely be able to overlook.
Honorable Mentions
We tested many more sauces and brands than those listed above. While the aforementioned store-bought pasta sauces are our favorites of the bunch, here are some honorable mentions, in alphabetical order:
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