The best pasta sauce is flavorful, made with high-quality ingredients—and it’s sitting on the shelf in your local grocery store. You don’t have to go to a fancy Italian trattoria or slave over a pot of homemade sauce to enjoy a delicious pasta dinner. Trust us. We’ve done the (very delicious) legwork (tongue work?). Whether you prefer a rich, creamy alfredo sauce or a bright tomatoey marinara, we’ve found the best store bought pasta sauce for you. The Sporked crew has taste tested everything from arrabbiata to bolognese to find the sauces even the world’s fussiest nonna will love. These are the eight best pasta sauces from our taste tests.
- Rao’s Homemade Marinara Sauce
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Let’s get this out of the way: Yes, Rao’s Homemade Marinara is more expensive than other pasta sauces on the market, but we swear it’s worth it. Not only is it the best marinara, it’s some of the best pasta sauce, period. It’s pleasantly oily, super savory, and tastes like sauce that’s been simmering on a stove all day long. It’s the best marinara sauce we tried in multiple marinara sauce taste tests. As one Sporked taste tester put it, you should definitely “pay the extra money and [not] look back.”
Read the full ranking of the best marinara sauce
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Giovanni Rana Alfredo Sauce
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Giovanni Rana is the best store bought alfredo sauce we’ve ever tried. To be honest, even though so much store bought pasta sauce is really good, store bought alfredo sauce tends to be pretty bad. But the taste and texture of this sauce are both on point. Plus, we love the fact that Rana uses a combination of Parmigiano Reggiano and Pecorino Romano cheeses, which give it a pungent, salty bite. Make like it’s 1999 and prep some blackened chicken alfredo at home with one of the best pasta sauces you can buy.
Read the full ranking of the best alfredo sauce
Credit: Ryan Martin / Walmart
- Kirkland Basil Pesto
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Kirkland Basil Pesto is the pesto you should be buying. This tastes like restaurant-quality pesto—and we’re talking about a nice Italian restaurant. The taste is unbelievably fresh and there’s none of the odd acidity you’ll find in other store bought pestos. We love that it’s rich, cheesy, earthy, and oily—not to mention that it comes in a gigantic jar. Not impressed yet? This pesto uses D.O.P (Protected Designation of Origin) Genovese basil. If pesto is your pasta sauce of choice, this is the pasta sauce to buy.
Read the full ranking of the best pesto
Credit: Merc / Costco
- Cento Vodka Sauce
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Everyone loves vodka sauce—it’s simultaneously creamy, tangy, and deeply savory (bonus points if it actually contains some vodka). Cento makes the best jarred vodka sauce you can buy at the grocery store. We were Cento fans before our vodka sauce taste tests, and this pasta sauce only made our adoration stronger. It’s the best pasta sauce if you want penne alla vodka that truly tastes homemade. It’s brightly acidic, bitey, and rich, just like a pasta sauce nonna would make. Skip the viral TikTok spicy tomato pasta recipe and just buy a jar of this instead. It’ll be cheaper and easier.
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde / Cento
- Rao’s Homestyle Bolognese
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When it comes to the best pasta sauce made with meat, this is the stuff to buy. Rao’s Homestyle Bolognese is the best bolognese and the best jarred meat sauce we tried during our in-office taste test and it’s no surprise. We generally love their products and found their bolognese to be ”warm, inviting, and deeply savory.” Rao’s uses ground beef and pancetta in this sauce, which sets it apart from lots of other bolognese sauces on the market. Plus, it has nice big chunks of meat. Rao’s just gets it!
Credit: Merc/Amazon
- Specially Selected Premium Marinara Sauce
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If Rao’s sauces give you sticker shock, we have really, really good news: Aldi sells what is basically a dupe for Rao’s Marinara sauce. Specially Selected Premium Marinara is oily in a good way, deeply savory, and has the same slow-cooked flavor as Rao’s. It’s unreal. It’s some of the best pasta sauce we’ve ever tasted—and it’s cheap!
Read the full ranking of the best Aldi pasta sauce
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Rao’s Homemade Arrabbiata
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Yep, yet another Rao’s Homemade sauce lands on our list of the best pasta sauce at the grocery store. No surprise, when we taste tested store bought arrabbiata, theirs did not disappoint. It tastes almost exactly like Rao’s marinara (which, as we’ve already established, slaps), with a nice burst of heat on the finish. If you like a spicy sauce, you’re going to like this.
Read the full ranking of the best arrabbiata sauce
Credit: Merc / Target
- The Silver Palate Low Sodium Marinara
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Store bought pasta sauce that’s actually low sodium (versus lower sodium) isn’t easy to come by. The Silver Palate makes a marinara that tastes great and is actually low sodium, with only 140 milligrams a serving. It’s flavorful (but not overly sweet like other low sodium sauces) and unctuous without being oily. As one taste tester said, “This is one of those diet-friendly products pretty much anyone would be happy to eat,” and that makes it one of the best pasta sauces you can buy.
Read the full ranking of the best low sodium pasta sauce
Credit: Merc / Vons
Best Marinara
Best Alfredo
Best Pesto
Best Vodka Sauce
Best Meat Sauce
Best Aldi Sauce
Best Arrabbiata
Best Low Sodium
