Pro Chefs Taste Test Supermarket Marinara

They almost always have a sour aftertaste. I've tried them as a shortcut and threw them away after a some sampling.

I'm not a snob, it's one of the few prepared foods that reminds me of vomit, I guess b/c of the tomatoes?

Rao's is my go to sauce. Michaelangelo also makes a decent marinara.

What a surprise. The $6 and $7 sauces were better than the $2 and $3 ones. Now feed a family of 4 for less than $15 and see how you do.

Do they still make Classico? That was my go to in the late 90s when I worked long hours. It didn't have the crazy amounts of corn syrup or sugar.. Besides the quality of the tomatoes, that's probably the significant difference in ingredients. But if you're feeding id's, I suppose candied marinara is OK.

^kids

Classico was one of the sauces that didn't get a good review.

r3 you can do it if you make your sauce. It is so much cheaper and you get about 4 times as much for the same price. Even if you spring for the San Marzano tomatoes.

Home cooked Mariana sauce is always better in theory, but the times I’ve made it it just didn’t taste like anything special, more like a tarted up ketchup. Guess I need some new recipes. Anyhow sometimes I don’t have time to peel garlic, chop onions, or go to the supermarket for pricey fresh basil for a weeknight meal, so I’ll open a jarred sauce to plop over some frozen ravioli. In that case Rao’s and Celetano will have to do.

Target’s Marinara has no added sugar.

Off topic, I tried Rao's frozen pizza and it was sort of trash. Not terrible, but not better than much cheaper frozen pizzas. I don't know why I keep thinking there's some great frozen pizza out there.

Have you tried Home Run Inn, r10? I'm not sure if those are sold all over the country though ...

Mutti products are great and reasonably to low priced in Europe.

They didn't test Barilla? I have no idea how it's regarded, but it's a major supermarket brand. I

Like Rao’s, have never seen the winner, and have never tried the Newman’s but I add anise to my marinara and tomato sauces (like bolognese) because that’s what my Italian grandmother did and I guess I just thought that was normal. Evidently it’s not. But I like it and it feels like it’s missing if it’s not there.

But there are two SUPER expensive sauces they didn’t review that I’ve tried and I like. They can both be hard to find and expensive as hell ($15 a jar or more 🙄). Victoria’s White Linen, which is good but maybe not worth the price and then this one which totally confuses me. It used to be labeled as San Marzano (I’m sure it was, I don’t think I’m imagining this) but became “San Mercian” and the tomatoes are grown in the US. I don’t know if they used to use San Marzano tomatoes and stopped or had to stop using the San Marzano name, but they make a marinara that is pretty good (or at least was the last time I tried it and it was still, if I’m not mistaken, called “San Marzano”) and it was close to $10 a jar then but now it’s $15 and up and I can only find it at Amazon and Macy’s(!) and not in a grocery. Not really worth it at that price.

I’ll make my own or stick with Rao’s (but might try Newman’s)

R1 I know that Parmesan and vomit have the same component called butyric acid. Perhaps you associate tomatoes with Parmesan.

Just give me a can of Hunt’s and I’ll hook it up right.

I use Hunt's too! Add roasted garlic and ground turkey, extra virg, salt and pepper. It's pretty decent.

Mutti is huge in Italy for their whole peeled canned tomatoes. It is considered a quality product. I buy them.

I think the Cento brand tomatoes are good too.

R14 The “San Mercian” brand tomatoes have a nice flavor and color, they are highly recommended by the Wirecutter Reviews in the NYTimes. But they contain calcium chloride a firming agent and in fact I find the tomatoes to be too firm, like something is off, but they do taste good.

I've never tried Their sauce ( I make mine)

When I do need a jar of sauce, I always use Trader Joe's. I'm now quite ashamed of my preference after these three ⬆️

it would have been a more compelling review if they were opening jars without the label and just tasting them blindly.

R8 you don't have to chop up the veggies is you make a Pompadoro sauce. Can of San Marzano or if too expensive, a can of Peeled tomatoes. Get a red onion, two carrots, Garlic, and olive oil. Heat the oil, and simmer the garlic gloves (peeled but whole/smashed). Pour the tomatoes in a bowl and crush them up with your hands, then into the pot you are simmering the garlic. Add in a red Onion cut in half, the carrots, peeled and cut up into large chunks, and a handful of fresh basil. Simmer the whole pot for 20-30 mins then take out the onions, carrots, basil, and garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Boom you have sauce.

Marinara is even simpler. No reason to buyy something in a jar.

[quote]Pompadoro sauce

Oh, DEAR.

Showing results for [bold]Pomodoro sauce[/bold]

Search instead for [italic]Pompadoro sauce[/italic]

Tomatoes sauce in Italy can be very simple. Chopped garlic (and onion if you like) sautéed in a good olive oil, add canned tomatoes and their juice, crush with a fork, salt, a touch of hot pepper. If you like, fresh basil if you have it. Let simmer for 30 minutes. That's all. Done.

I like Classico and Prego. Prego has more added sugar, though.

R21 don't cook the basil so long.

Yeah if you are adding fresh basil you would add it in the last 5 minutes of cooking. You wouldn't cook fresh basil for 30 minutes.

I LOVE basil.

I saute garlic and pepperoni slices in olive oil with fresh basil. Slowly. Then I add tomato paste, simmer and stir, add water, and two or three cans of tomato sauce, maybe add some garlic powder salt and pepper. Then I add Rao. I never use RAO straight from the jar with out doctoring it up.

R29, what do the pepperoni slices do/add?

R29 sounds vile.

I tend to use Trader Joe's sauces, though not the particular one they sampled as I don't care for basil. I do add more garlic, though.

I cannot focus on the segment due to Hillary Sterling’s hideous hairstyle.

[QUOTE]R29], what do the pepperoni slices do/add?

Grease and flavor, presumably. Health conscious folks underestimate how much animal fats add to our enjoyment.

Hard to beat -Marcella Hazan Tomato sauce: 2 cups tomatoes (canned and peeled or, fresh Romas), 5 tablespoons butter, 1/2 onion. Simmer about 45 minutes, break up tomatoes with spoon, remove onion half; add pinch of salt -perfecto. If you want to add something else - that’s up to you.

Rao's is too salty. I like Vincent's. And the Silver Palate's San Marzano is a decent jarred sauce too.

If I'm using jarred, I like Victoria White Linen. But I've never seen it at supermarkets, only Costco. I kept hearing about Rao's being the best, but I find it has too much oil. I like the brighter, more tomato forward Victoria.

The pepperoni adds flavor. No, it's not "vile" it's a basic tomato basil sauce and I would never use butter. Olive oil. A good quality olive oil. Now you can add some ground beef seasoned with garlic salt and pepper, that you've already browned and drained of fat. Let the whole ting simmer low and slow for about 45 minutes to an hour stirring occasionally. Sometimes I'll add some rushed red pepper if I want it extra spicey. You control by how much garlic you use.

the pepproncinci would be likely to add citric acid...it quelles down natural tomato flavor.

So probably too-sweet, overripe tomats.

Just my opinion.

pepperoncini is different from pepperoni.

[quote] "I tried Rao's frozen pizza and it was sort of trash."

Just like the sauce. I've never seen so many people so delusional about a sauce. But if overpaying makes people happy, let 'em. I guess I'm in the wrong business.

Also: that taste test clip was complete bullshit. Once I saw it wasn't blind, I skipped. I recommend everyone else do the same.

Has anyone tried Carbone’s marinara?

For years, I bought Hunt's in a can. Then I read that there are fears the acid in the tomato sauce can cause the chemicals in the can's plastic liner to leech into the sauce. So I started buying sauce only in glass jars.

I like Rao's and also Newman's Sockarooni.

My fav is Newmans own

“San Mercian” was a typo. They are actually San MERICAN (as in American, because they are grown in the US) and I couldn’t find a definitive answer but it looks like they were forced to remove San Marzano from their label around 2016 because “San Marzano” is a name that has a European protected designation of origin status and its illegal to call them that unless they are from that specific region of Italy. Like champagne and parmigiano-reggiano.

So I’m not (totally) crazy. They were selling them as San Marzano until they were required to stop.

They’re still too damn expensive!!

I like Cento Italian Style peeled tomatoes (non-San Marzano) just fine. They taste just as good as the San Marzanos and cost half as much. I buy the whole ones, and use the stick blender to break them up before I add them to a recipe.

The Bianco tomatoes are good.

I like Hunts. And I add a can of Manwich to chili and spaghetti sauce.

You have to add sugar to canned tomatoes.

I've loved Rao's for years, and it's on sale often enough at some supermarket or another, including Whole Foods Market, I like their frozen selections also, if on sale, such as Penne a la Vodka. .

I may try their carmalized (carmelized?) onion marinara. Sounds good!

A friend tried Rao's at my suggestion, and was disappointed. He seems the type content with cheaper and inferior store-bought sauces.

And yes to the above poster regarding Carbone's which is newer here in Boston supermarkets, and $$$, but on sale at times and very good. A fancy restaurant in Boston, Parm, has jars of it on display....hmmm, so do they just use that jarred sauce and not their own recipe?

I love Michael's of Brooklyn in that 32-ounce jar. Not on sale often. Wegmans seems to have the best everyday price on it.

R29 it most certainly seems vile.

I saute garlic and pepperoni slices in olive oil with fresh basil. Slowly. Then I add tomato paste, simmer and stir, add water, and two or three cans of tomato sauce, maybe add some garlic powder salt and pepper. Then I add Rao. I never use RAO straight from the jar with out doctoring it up.

the basil goes in much later.

you are bizarrely using tomato paste AND "2 or 3 cans of tomato sauce" ??? then adding jarred prepared sauce - the Rao. Why the need for another "canned sauced"? Raos already prepared their sauce and jarred it.

Finally, you're adding garlic powder. GARLIC POWDER!!!

Completely amateur trailer park trash vile concoction

Learn to make your own sauce. Agree with the anise, i put a star anise in mine and remove it when done. Once you learn to make your own sauce you realize how Bad the jarred sauces are. I also add a beef boullioncube, garlic , onion, basil. Parm rind.

All you need to make marinara: tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, basil, oregano. I leave out the oregano. No anise. No pepperoni. No onions.

All you need to make marinara: tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, basil, oregano. I leave out the oregano.

No onions. No anise. No pepperoni. (Anise in marinara? Eek!)

[quote]They didn't test Barilla? I have no idea how it's regarded, but it's a major supermarket brand. I

I've never tried Barilla due to a lack of interest, R13.

Pepperoni is cured Italian sausage. Pepperoncini are ...peppers.

When we're talking about the basic Italian spaghetti sauce ingredients like butter onions or cream sound vile to me. For me Garlic, basil, Olive oil are the ingredients my Neopolitan grandmother used and she always browned the tomato paste then added a can of water, and then canned tomato sauce. She used to can her own tomatoes and use those too along with crushed red pepper. And about a half stick of pepperoni sausage. Of course she also seared chunks of pork and beef then put them in the pot to flavor her sauce. Simmered it on the lowest possible heat until the sauce cooked down and thickened, and the meat fell apart. We never used Parmesan cheese. We used Locatelli Pecorino Romano cheese.

When I was a kid in the late 80s, my mom bought this canned sauce called PRESTIGIO (not Prego). It was so good but I haven't seen it in decades.

Anyone remember it? I was a kid so it was probably super sweet but I still loved it.

I've never seen Mutti marinara sauce in stores--but I have bought their passata. Rao's is my favorite, but I also use some of the cheaper brands depending on what I'm using it for. Muir Glen is often on sale and is decent. I just bought a rather pricey one called Botticelli, but I haven't tried it yet.

Victoria's is very good and usually on sale. Buttoni's is the only one I have seen that has a vegan Bolognese which is pretty good as well. Even with all that I stick to making Pomodoro sauce above and just using the old jars of said sauces :D

[quote]vegan Bolognese

Oxymoron

My mom made spaghetti sauce from recipe on the back of the ronzoni box.

People keep mentioning the addition of "tomato sauce" when zhuzhing up jarred tomato sauce. Isn't the jarred sauce already, um, SAUCE? So you're adding crappy sauce to crappy sauce and this makes it better?

Muir Glen is the only one I've found to be really good, I mean just plain canned tomatoes, not prepared marinara sauce. It has a very umami zip. The rest are either too bland or too sour. The best thing to do is buy some local tomatoes in season and cook it yourself. The stuff I make tastes like tomato candy, naturally sweet and tart. It almost tastes like lemonade. I make a huge batch and freeze it all. To make it into marinara I saute an onion in olive oil, add about 28 oz sauce, simmer for 30 minutes, then add broiled meatballs and basil at the end.

R63, first of all, I like Rao. I don't think of it as "crappy sauce, but yeah there are a lot of crappy sauces around. Rao all by itself doesn't do enough, but it is a good foundation or added element to my own ingredients. And when I doctor it up a bit, it tastes even better. But that's just me. I used to use Classico a long long time ago.

I think Martha Stewart recommends Muir Glen. I use it too.

[QUOTE]To make it into marinara I saute an onion in olive oil, add about 28 oz sauce, simmer for 30 minutes, then add broiled meatballs and basil at the end.

Making it into not marinara.

R65 Fine but explain why you add a couple CANS OF TOMATO SAUCE, to Rao sauce. It doesn't make sense. Maybe add some extra whole tomatoes from a can, or something.

R68, you do you. It's my recipe. I don't need to explain "Why?"

It seems to me the point of jarred sauce is that I open it and use it. Quick and easy. If I want to start chopping and sautéing and simmering, I can just make the entire sauce myself.

R53 That is the classic tomato sauce made throughout Italy.

At the height of tomato season you would use fresh tomatoes but otherwise, canned.

For everyday cooking, Italians keep things very simple. Tomato sauce should taste fresh and light.

Tuscan "pomarola" is cooked with chopped onion, celery and carrots and then passed through a food mill.

Anise? Just no.

[quote] Home cooked Mariana sauce is always better in theory, but the times I’ve made it it just didn’t taste like anything special, more like a tarted up ketchup. Guess I need some new recipes.

1. Empty a 28-ounce can of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes into a medium sauce pot.

2. Add one whole yellow onion, peeled and cut in half (pole-to-pole).

3. Add 5 Tablespoons of cold butter.

4. Add kosher salt to taste and a good pinch of red pepper flakes.

5. Bring to a boil, while breaking up the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.

6. Once your tomatoes are beginning to boil, reduce to a gentle simmer and cook for 45 minutes.

7. Taste and correct the amount of salt & red pepper flakes. Remove onion.

8. Enjoy this delicious and easy sauce from Marcella Hazan.

^ Her sauce is a tomato and butter sauce.

5 Tablespoons. Fine if all that butter is your thing. It does pair well with gnocchi or fresh egg pasta....something hearty. More winter than summer.

I've made her recipe in Italy for Italian friends (Tuscany).

You can do the same substituting olive oil for the butter.

Greg, though I love Marcella's tomato-butter-onion sauce, I do not consider it marinara. It's Marcella's 3-ingredient sauce, or her tomato-butter-onion sauce.

And I really do love this sauce. I make it more than any other.

Her recipe is easy for people and a million times better than supermarket bottled stuff.

[quote]though I love Marcella's tomato-butter-onion sauce, I do not consider it marinara.

BTW "la marina" in Italy is tomatoes, olive oil, garlic and oregano. And nothing else (except sometimes the addition of parsley). It's the oregano that makes it "marinara".

If I buy a cheap jarred marinara, I doctor it up with red wine or sometimes mushrooms and garlic sautéed in white wine.

That’s right, R75.

I’ve shared Marcella’s recipe with friends who do not consider themselves “good in the kitchen” and some have said that they’ll never purchase commercially jarred tomato sauce again.

[quote] It's the oregano that makes it "marinara".

I make mine according to the recipe in r54, and use basil at the end. No oregano. I still call it marinara.

R79 You are American and free to call it what ever you like. That recipe at R54 is "tomato sauce" in Italy (sugo di pomodoro). It is the most widely made tomato sauce.

La marina. on the other hand, is tomatoes, garlic and oregano. It is the classic pizza sauce in Italy.

I'm only pointing this out because some might find it interesting.

[quote] I may try their carmalized (carmelized?) onion marinara. Sounds good!

It's "caramelized."

I put anise seeds in my puttanesca sauce. I like anise in sausage, so I tried it in my puttanesca sauce and I like it that way.

Alternative Facts. Whatever sauce I make and whatever I call it is authentic and good and true.

I buy a can of Contadina sauce. You don’t even have to add anything. Have some decent grated, refrigerated (not including filler) Romano or Parmesan cheese with it, and presto.

(I meant, not canned or jarred cheese. Ambiola brand pecorino romano, for instance.)

Contadina has Roma tomato pureee and paste, sea salt, citric acid, onion powder, garlic powder, and “spices”.

R13 You never heard of Russiagate?

It's not complicated. The key is making sure you have good quality tomatoes or tomato sauce.

I must be stupid.

The key to making good tomato sauce is to make sur you have good quality.... wait for it.... tomato sauce.

Do you nimrods consider every canned tomato product "sauce". Crushed tomatoes? Whole tomatoes? Tomato puree? All those are "tomato sauce"?

This video came up in my feed last week, what a coincidence.

I can't be hopelessly in between. Either I'm making sauce from scratch or using jarred sauce. Doctoring up jarred sauce is pointless.

Today I am grateful for the opportunity, ability, and circumstances which allow me to grow my own San Marzano tomatoes every summer, and freeze whatever sauce I don't immediately use. This year I also saved some of the seeds. If I'm going to freeze the sauce, I freeze it plain, with no other ingredients. It'll get jazzed up as a recipe requires.

I also have seeds of "Jersey tomatoes' someone gave me, swearing that those are the best tomatoes. Can anyone from NJ verify? I never heard of them.

"Jersey tomatoes"

Jersey tomatoes have always been the best. Are they still? IDK. I don't live there anymore. The tomatoes my father grew when I was a child in the 1960s are the best I ever had.

Did your mom shop at Winn-Dixie r58? I think Prestigio may have been their store brand.

When I did study abroad in London way back when some of my fellow Americans were really excited that one of them found Prego in one of the supermarkets.

There was a Winn-Dixie further down the road but my mom shopped at another locally owned grocery store.

I sometimes see an expensive jar of Patsy's mariinara sauce in my local stores. It's a famous restaurant in NYC, right?

Does the jarred version duplicate the in-person restaurant experience at Patsy's?

Is it weird that I detest raw tomatoes but adore anything with pasta sauce or tomato sauce?

No, r97. Most of the year, fresh tomatoes are pure pink, mealy crap. The sauces I make from canned Cento tomatoes are pretty good.

R98 yes, I use Cento, too or Muir Glen. When I make my own sauce from scratch, I have to remember what Grandma always said: Be careful not to brown the garlic because it tastes very bitter and will ruin the sauce. And of course be careful not to scorch and burn your sauce. The simmer has to be very low heat, and you have to stir it periodically. Her pots were huge. She had a six burner gas stove and she put the sauce pot on the end corner burner and we had to be careful when we were playing and running around not to get near the stove. She used a wooden spoon to stir. The meatballs were browned in a huge cast iron frying pan, then plopped into the sauce.

[quote]Has anyone tried Carbone’s marinara?

I didn't like it at all, and it certainly wasn't worth the high price. It has a strong mushroomy aftertaste.

This is an easy recipe for spaghetti and meat sauce.

It’s fascinating that tomato sauce is considered so quintessentially Italian, but the tomato is actually American and people in Europe were terrified of it when the colonizers first brought it back, lol.

My brother hates tomato sauce. Won't eat anything with tomato sauce on it. Not pasta, or eggplant parmesan or anything. We grew up in the same Italian household. Now he's a grown up with his own family he rejects it totally. Very bizarre.

Maybe it gives him acid reflux

"Is it weird that I detest raw tomatoes but adore anything with pasta sauce or tomato sauce?"

It's not weird at all, and it's in fact quite common. The chemistry and flavors change when tomatoes are cooked. I HATE raw tomatoes and even just stewed tomatoes I like, and I love various tomatoe-based sauces.

When I was a little kid at my Grandma's house, in the late summer we'd eat fresh beefsteak tomatoes off the vine with some salt, as if they were fruit. They tasted so different from what is offered today.

I like sausage in my anus, but not the other way around!

[quote] in the late summer we'd eat fresh beefsteak tomatoes off the vine with some salt, as if they were fruit.

Well, they are technically fruit.

[quote] They tasted so different from what is offered today.

What you ate at your Grandma's house was how tomatoes are intended to be eaten - sun-ripened and fresh. What you get in the store is generally shit because they aren't sun-ripened nor fresh off the vine.

[quote]Well, they are technically fruit.

Takes one to know one.

[quote] Be careful not to brown the garlic because it tastes very bitter and will ruin the sauce.

I love browned garlic. Not sure why this has become such a cooking no-no. Everybody says that on cooking demonstrations.

Also, "scrambled" or curdled eggs when mixing eggs into something. (Need to temper.) Everybody loves to warn about this.

Also, mispronouncing, on purpose, Worcestershire sauce. Like it's so hard to say and cute when mispronounced.

Finally, the pith or white part of a citrus fruit is not bitter. It's tasteless or taste-free, pretty much.

For R109

I just call it Whatsthishere sauce.

Marinera

If you are in some regions of Italy and see "Spaghetti alla Marinara" on the menu you may be served spaghetti with seafood. The word "marinara" means "seafaring" in English. In the South it will be tomatoes, anchiovies, olives, garlic, oregano. Sometimes capers. In others, tomatoes without the anchovies and olives. Oregano though is common to all of them. The concept is that it uses the herbs common to the Mediterranean.

Reminder: Campbell Soup Company acquired Rao's recently; tastebuds be warned. Buy now before the inevitable recipe change.

Yo no soy marinara -- soy capitán.

Bamba, bamba!

I used to eat that in the 1950s and '60s, r117. I've never liked anything more than pasta. Eventually my father taught me how to cook my own, make a couple of sauces. It was his favorite food, too.

As a little Italian kid with an Italian Grandma who cooked from sunrise to sunset for all of us, one day I went over to a friends house and it was Saturday and his mother asked me if I wanted some lunch so of course I said yes. Chef Boy Ar Dee. OMG I thought I would gag. It was terrible. Just awful. Between that and Spaghetti-O's my friend's palette was destroyed at a young age.

It's a palate, R119. A palette is what you use when you paint.

Thank you R120. I must have been thinking of the time he threw his spaghetti=O's at his easel.

How about Ina's marinara?

Newman’s sauce lets me add all the tomatoes I forgot to use in salads.

As far as meat, I’ve converted to “real” browned beef - cooked long enough to be scraped from the pan. I don’t notice much of a difference in taste. The cooks on youtube were very stabby about properly browned beef.

r122 a basic sauce, nothing earth-shattering but fine and probably 1000 times better than a store-bought jar sauce.

i'm disappointed that this isn't a regular series on that channel - i was checking for more videos like this. helpful!

There's a time consuming marinara recipe on Serious Eats that is supposed to be really good. I haven't made it yet, but one of these days soon, I will.