Gourmet Pasta Sauce

Best specialty and lesser-known pasta sauce brands

A few jarred pasta sauces earn consistent praise in the most credible reviews. These sauces do not contain corn syrup or dehydrated aromatics, such as garlic and onions. They do, however, have their downsides: at $8 to $10 a jar, they are significantly more expensive than supermarket brands, and they can be difficult to find in stores. Most are not as sweet as the national brands, and therefore may not be as appealing to children. (Cook's Illustrated reports that households with children are more likely to buy jarred pasta sauces than households without.)

Several varieties of Rao's pasta sauce earn top ratings more often than any other commercial sauce brand. These jarred sauces are prepared using recipes developed for Rao's restaurant, a Harlem fixture for more than 100 years. The restaurant is notorious for its exclusivity: with just ten tables, it's one of the toughest reservations in New York (tables are booked years in advance). Rao's sauces appear three times on top reviewer David Rosengarten's shortlist of 15 best pasta sauces. Rosengarten selects Rao's Homemade Marinara, Homemade Roasted Eggplant Siciliana and Southern Italian Pepper & Mushroom Sauce (all *est. $9 for 26 ounces). Veteran food writer Ed Levine also picks the Homemade Marinara, which he calls "luxuriantly thick, well balanced, and complex." Levine notes that the ingredient list for Rao's Marinara is almost identical to the recipe in the Rao's cookbook.

Some reviewers are fond of other varieties of Rao's sauces. Editors at Food & Wine are partial to Rao's Homemade Vodka sauce, which they say is a "huge improvement over the usual sauce in a jar." Although it's not in his top 15, David Rosengarten is a fan of Rao's Italian Sausage and Mushroom (*est. $9 for 26 ounces), which he says has "excellent Italian sausage flavor" in a sauce that's a "little thicker and sweeter" than other Rao's varieties. Consumers on discussion sites such as Chowhound.com also recommend Rao's pasta sauce.

After Rao's, the gourmet pasta sauce brand most often recommended by reviewers is Dell'Amore. Like Rao's, Dell'Amore was founded by the descendants of immigrants from southern Italy, and its recipes are said to have been handed down through generations. In 1992, Florence Fabricant of The New York Times interviewed Frank Dell'Amore and learned that his employees were peeling 300 pounds of garlic a month by hand. Dell'Amore sells fewer varieties of sauce than Rao's, but neither Rao's nor Dell'Amore adds sugar to their pasta sauces, and both companies use only Italian olive oil. David Rosengarten says Dell'Amore Marinara (*est. $8 for 25.5 ounces) has a "spot-on old-fashioned restaurant taste" and a deep tomato flavor. Food & Wine says that Dell'Amore Portobello Mushroom (*est. $8 for 25.5 ounces) "comes very close to homemade." Unfortunately, Dell'Amore appears to have discontinued its mushroom sauce.

Like Rao's, Patsy's jarred sauces are said to be nearly identical to those served at the New York City restaurant of the same name, at one time favored by Frank Sinatra. The company's marinara pasta sauce is a winner in Cook's Illustrated's taste test, and Columbus Alive calls it "rich, chunky, and very garlicky." David Rosengarten finds Patsy's tomato-basil (*est. $9 for 24 ounces) "complex and exciting," with a "big, bright basil taste." In contrast, Slate.com finds the basil flavor of this sauce stale. Although Patsy's is one of a handful of sauce brands that members of foodie-site Chowhound.com admit to using, we found the most consistent praise for Rao's pasta sauce, which is why we've included it in ConsumerSearch Fast Answers.

Those looking for organic pasta sauces have a few options, including Muir Glen, Newman's Own and Amy's. Of these, only Amy's crops up more than once in taste tests. Reviewers say that Amy's Organic Family Marinara (*Est. $6 for 24.5 ounces) (*est. $6 for 24.5 ounces) is nicely balanced and has a thick texture. It has a slow-simmered taste and is neither too sweet nor too spicy, making it a good choice for families with children.