Recommend Your Favorite Jarred Spaghetti Sauce

[Anonymous]

I believe Rao's is about $8 at HT.

[Anonymous]

I know you said jarred, but I highly recommend making Giada's Marinara sauce (doubling it) and then freeze in serving size portions. It is super duper easy and no preservatives or other random ingredients. I usually make it on Sunday afternoons about twice a month. EASY and delish!

I also second/3rd/4th the TJ's Tomato Basil Marinara. Love Rao's, but at $10/bottle it is sooooo expensive.

[Anonymous]

I like Classico 4 cheese, but I do not like the other Classico's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know you said jarred, but I highly recommend making Giada's Marinara sauce (doubling it) and then freeze in serving size portions. It is super duper easy and no preservatives or other random ingredients. I usually make it on Sunday afternoons about twice a month. EASY and delish!

I also second/3rd/4th the TJ's Tomato Basil Marinara. Love Rao's, but at $10/bottle it is sooooo expensive.

Yes, Giada's sauce is sooo easy and delicious too. Opening a far is not much easier.

[Anonymous]

Whole Foods Organic Fat Free. A lot of the jarred sauces contain soybean oil instead of olive oil, but the Whole Foods Fat Free brand doesn't have any oil. I just add my own when heating up the sauce on the stovetop.

Otherwise, I think Barilla tastes good as well as Newman's Own (the one with the red wine).

A little bit of sugar doesn't bother me--so long as it is far down on the list of ingredients.

[Anonymous]

I've got to say, I hate all jarred sauces. They taste nothing like real tomato sauce. In a pinch, we use a bagged sauce we find at Giant. I can't think of the brand...it's in a yellow bag. I brown some garlic, throw in some fresh tomatos and basil, and dump the bag of sauce in. It comes very very close to fresh!

[Anonymous]

In Florida last summer we had some amazing jarred marinara sauce from Iron Chef Mario Batali - I have looked in the local Giant and Whole Foods but they dont carry it - has anyone seen it in the area?

[Anonymous]

Rao's is worth the extra $. I stock up when it's on sale. Whole Foods does carry it and so do most Giants and Safeways, but they usually only carry a couple of the flavors. My favorite is the regular marinara, the arribiata (spicy) and the putenesca. Actually, they are ALL good. I don't know if they carry it any more, but my mom used to get Rao's from Bed Bath and Beyond back in the 90s (she was way ahead of the times) and she would use the 20% off coupons.

[Anonymous]

I can't stomach buying Rao's when it's significantly so much more expensive. I like Newman's Own and the Sun of Italy sauces too. It's odd, I think Sun of Italy is actually imported, but it IS cheap... Newman's Own sauces tend to be a little on the sweeter side. I don't like Prego or Ragu because they're just overly salty to me.

[Anonymous]

Rao's is great, but expensive. Our kids like Whole Foods. But really, if you keep canned tomatoes, tomato paste, and garlic in your pantry, you can so easily make something that's soooo much tastier than sauce from the jar. It really doesn't take much effort or time. Just get the sauce going, then put the water on to boil for the pasta, and by the time the water's ready and you cook your pasta, your sauce will be ready too. I think a lot of folks imagine that the sauce has to simmer for hours, and while that will certainly enhance the flavor, it's not necessary.

[Anonymous]

RAOs Arabbiata! Yum

[Anonymous]

Barilla or Simply Enjoy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I haven't found a jarred tomato sauce that I like, so I make my own tomato sauce. It's so easy and I can put it on the table in less than 30 minutes.

1 big can of crushed tomatoes
1 regular sized can of petite diced tomatoes

Saute a few crushed garlic cloves in olive oil until they start to brown. Add the tomatoes until the sauce thickens slightly. Add salt and sugar to taste. If I have it, I add some fresh chopped basil. It's delicious and my 4yo and dh love it.

Someday I'd like to take a stab at making my own sauce. Right now I buy whatever is on sale and add to it. I'm lucky in that I grow my own herbs so I can add fresh basil, oregano and parsley, but even when all I had was dried it still made a huge difference. I also put in garlic powder and sometimes a little crushed red pepper.

If you're adding spices to jarred sauce already, you basically ARE making your own sauce. Just start with crushed/diced/pureed tomatoes (depending on the consistency you prefer), add garlic, onion and spices, and cook down.

[Anonymous]

Classico "Spicy Red Pepper" this is my fav of all time. It is not that spicy and safeway often hasit on sale. DH thinks it is too thin, but I like thinner sauces that are a little chunky rather than the super thick ones. I did recently try Trader Joe's rustic or rustica something like that and it was really good, it had onions peppers and mushrooms in it, but the only thing you could see in chunks were the mushrooms so your DC wouldn't see the onion chunks

[Anonymous]

I know you said you don't like Ragu, but my kids love Ragu Organic Garden Veggie sauce. They don't like chunky sauces and this one is smooth, and we like it because it's organic. Giant and Safeway used to carry it but stopped (I think to promote their own organic sauces), but I recently found it at Harris Teeter. My husband loves the Puttanesca sauce at Williams-Sonoma, but it's so expensive that we only get it once in awhile. If you want to splurge, though, it is delicious!