- 2 days ago
Today on Epicurious, we’ve asked professional chefs Frank Proto, Dan Richer, and Giorgia Caporuscio to give us their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent tomato sauce brands found on supermarket shelves. Which marinara packs the most bang for your buck, and which should you avoid at all costs?
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00:00We've gathered three tomato sauce experts to blind taste test every brand of tomato
00:05sauce we could get our hands on to see which ones meet their standards.
00:12Because eating these sauces cold would be miserable, we heated them all up.
00:18Ragu, old world style marinara sauce. It looks super smooth, almost like a baby
00:24food to me. Like it came from a puree or from tomato paste. The color is great.
00:29It's really dark red, it's really dense. This actually smells pretty good.
00:33It kind of smells like a pizza sauce to me, which means usually it's cooked for a fairly long time,
00:38it has a little more oregano in it. I don't see any visible herbs in here. This is a very
00:43basic
00:44tomato sauce. When I look for a tomato sauce, I want it to be tomato forward. It's a tomato sauce,
00:48so it should taste like tomatoes. The tomato should be the star of the show, not the herbs,
00:53not the spices, not any sugar or salt or anything else. It's tomato sauce.
00:59The balance with the acidity and the sweetness, something in the middle.
01:05You don't want it to be like super acidity, like you're drinking or eating a lemon.
01:09You also don't want it to be too sweet. You don't want to put like frosting on your spaghetti.
01:13While we want it to be well seasoned, we don't want it to be overly seasoned with herbs and spices.
01:19Having too many flavors in there detracts from that tomato flavor.
01:23And finally, we're looking for texture. The junk of the tomato and the smooth of the sauce.
01:28We want it to be velvety. It should coat your mouth in the most wonderful way.
01:34That is not a bad tomato sauce. It tastes like a tomato.
01:38The acidity and the sweetness is really almost 50-50.
01:45They added some sugar to it, so it's a little on the sweet side for me.
01:47This is well seasoned. It's not overly garlicky, not overly oregano or basil.
01:53Salt is perfectly balanced.
01:55Texture is good.
01:56It's kind of jammy.
01:58Like a baby food or a tomato puree texture to me.
02:01I like that.
02:02Probably not using the best quality tomatoes, so they want to puree it up.
02:05This seems to be a Prego type sauce.
02:08I didn't hate this. I would eat this.
02:13Marinara is basically a quick cooked sauce, simple ingredients.
02:15Tomatoes, olive oil, some aromatics like onions or garlic, and maybe some basil.
02:20This one doesn't really hit the bill.
02:22It should be brighter, fresher, not as reduced, a little chunkier.
02:25In Italy, we don't say marinara sauce.
02:28We say tomato sauce.
02:30The first ingredient in this is tomato puree.
02:32Tomato puree isn't necessarily an inferior product.
02:34It's just a way for companies to get sauce in a jar quicker.
02:37So typically tomato canneries, they take truckloads of tomatoes and the absolute best tomatoes of that
02:45batch go into their flagship products, which is a whole peeled tomato.
02:50The ones that aren't the best of the best get ground up into tomato puree or tomato sauces.
02:56And the worst of the worst get packaged as tomato paste.
03:00For a product that you're going to eat a lot of like this, marinara sauce, we want whole peeled tomatoes.
03:07They add sugar here because the quality of the tomato they use it is not a lot sweeter.
03:14So this brand is really made for the masses.
03:17Consistent, reliable, not offensive in any way to anybody.
03:21And I try not to frown on that.
03:22It's just not my cup of tea.
03:25Not so bad.
03:25I'm very disappointed in myself and how much I liked the ragu.
03:32Classico, marinara pasta sauce with plum tomatoes and olive oil.
03:36It's a little paler red.
03:37This one is less puree.
03:39Look at that, whole chunks of tomatoes, which some people like, some people do not like.
03:45There's a little flecks of herbs in there.
03:47Maybe they have garlic in this case because I can smell right away.
03:53It's mildly tomato forward.
03:56Really high acid.
03:57This will give me heartburn.
04:00The saltiness is great, but the herbs really like kick in there.
04:04I think the tomato that they're using in this marinara is really cheap or doesn't have any taste,
04:11the tomato.
04:11So they need to put more garlic and oregano to just taste that.
04:17Dry herbs are super powerful and potent.
04:19Once it goes through the process of canning, some of those flavors get muted and dulled,
04:23so they tend to add more of those things.
04:25And in this case, I feel like it's a little more overpowering.
04:28Definitely tastes like there's diced tomatoes in here.
04:31It's firm and it really holds up.
04:33Generally, sauces like this will use a plum tomato.
04:36The oblong shape actually aids in the harvesting process.
04:40The tomatoes run up this conveyor belt, and the oblong shape actually prevents them
04:44from rolling off of this conveyor belt.
04:46They have less water, thinner skins, less seeds.
04:49And it gives us a higher flesh to water ratio.
04:52Want that tomato meat?
04:54I really don't like this one.
04:57Classico!
04:58Marinara with plum tomato and olive oil.
05:01But you can see it's another way.
05:03They put dry garlic, spicy.
05:05This is why I taste a lot garlic.
05:07There's like 20 ingredients in this.
05:09So I automatically know they're not using high quality tomatoes.
05:13They have to cover up the deficiency in deliciousness.
05:17They put olive oil on the label to like draw you in, but it's less than 2%.
05:22Yeah, there's some diced plum tomatoes, but it's not the first ingredient, number one.
05:26And they're treated with calcium chloride, so they're really never going to break down.
05:31The texture is just off and it's not a great mouthfeel.
05:33That tomato puree, chances are it's not made with plum tomatoes.
05:36It's made with whatever tomatoes the factory gets.
05:39But it's branded like it's whole world Italian food.
05:43I'm sorry.
05:44This one, like, no, no, no, no, no.
05:46I don't like it.
05:49Great Value Marinara Pasta Sauce.
05:52Bright, red, simple.
05:54It's lighter on the herbs, but you can see some onion in there.
05:57You can definitely see a little bit of oil separation.
05:59I like that.
06:00I have high hopes.
06:02This is really fresh.
06:04I don't hate it.
06:05It tastes tomatoey, but you do get a nice hit of basil.
06:08The balance of the acidity and the sugar are equal.
06:12The balance of the herbs is really nice in this.
06:15Not overly oregano, not overly garlicky.
06:18Seasoning is perfect.
06:20The texture is pleasant.
06:23Most of it is a puree.
06:24They threw in a couple of chunks.
06:26Firm calcium chloride.
06:28Doesn't need to be in there.
06:29I think this is my favorite.
06:31It's got a lot of characteristics of a higher end brand.
06:34Maybe a Rienzi or maybe a Pastena.
06:37I think this is just a basic tomato sauce.
06:41Great Value Marinara Sauce.
06:43This is a Walmart store brand.
06:46Oh wow.
06:47I'm not going to lie.
06:48I think this actually is a pretty good value.
06:50For $1.67, you're not going to get a fresh tomato flavor.
06:53You're not going to get a high quality tomato.
06:55But the formulation is actually not that bad.
06:58Tomato puree, diced tomatoes in tomato juice, canola oil.
07:02Wow.
07:02They're using dehydrated onions and garlic and spices.
07:07They're using a little citric acid and dehydrated parsley.
07:09They're using a lot of the things that I said might not be best, but for some reason they nailed
07:15it.
07:15Somebody actually cared about how much garlic is in there, how much of the herbs is in there.
07:22It's meant to feed a lot of people for a very inexpensive cost.
07:28I am blown away that this is as good as it is.
07:32Well, my great job.
07:36Rayo's homemade marinara sauce.
07:38Looks a touch orange, really thick.
07:42It looks like a natural chunk.
07:44It doesn't look like there's any diced tomatoes in here.
07:47It's good consistency, but it's really oily.
07:51I'm definitely tasting more tomato than the actual seasonings and flavorings in this.
07:56The acid is way too high, so the balance is just way off.
08:00If you look at the edge of the bowl,
08:02that actually looks like there's a little oil in there.
08:04It doesn't taste like it's very high quality, but it's there.
08:08And this is not well seasoned.
08:10There's way too much black pepper, way too much salt.
08:13That sure is good.
08:14The chunkiness is really nice on this.
08:16Not my favorite.
08:17Lower quality.
08:18I'm going to guess this might be an Italian brand like Bertolli.
08:21Oh my gosh, it's Rayo's.
08:24They're going to be killing me.
08:25I'm surprised because, you know, it's really famous.
08:29Rayo's is supposed to be like the golden child of tomato sauces in a jar.
08:33It's a famous institution restaurant here in New York City.
08:36Great family, great restaurant.
08:38This version of the sauce is not my favorite.
08:41Eight ingredients, which I love.
08:42Italian whole peeled tomatoes.
08:44If the tomato usually is coming from Italy, it's more sweet than acid.
08:48I taste like a bland taste of tomato.
08:51They're really not that high quality.
08:53The second ingredient in this is olive oil and you can see it.
08:56Not extra virgin olive oil.
08:58There's a bunch of different grades of olive oil.
09:01I'm a big believer in only using extra virgin olive oil.
09:05I hope it will go really soon to try inside the restaurant,
09:08but I'm not really impressed on the jar one.
09:14Prego marinara sauce.
09:16This sauce looks like it has a little more liquid to it.
09:19Some more puree.
09:21It's kind of like weirdly translucent.
09:23That smells like a zesty one.
09:27That is a terrible tomato.
09:29It's almost like a metallic taste in the back of your tongue.
09:32No, no, no.
09:33This tomato has some defects to it.
09:35Kind of like a chemically flavor.
09:38It's more acidity than the sweet.
09:39The herbs are definitely covering up for how bad the tomatoes are.
09:43It's really watering.
09:44This oil doesn't have a lot of flavor.
09:46Not my favorite at all.
09:47It's something red to put on pasta.
09:49This is prego.
09:50Prego!
09:51Prego means you're welcome in Italian.
09:54This is something, the sauce that I will not say prego.
09:58Starts out with tomato puree.
09:59In tomatoes, juice.
10:00This is really the big, what I feel that this one is really watering.
10:06Canola oil, which I'm not surprised about.
10:08It's a neutral oil, cheap product, real cheap.
10:10If they use fresh onions and garlic and cooked it in the oil,
10:14canola oil would carry those flavors into the sauce.
10:16Whereas they're using garlic powder and onion powder.
10:19So they're not using the oil as a carrier flavor.
10:22They're just using it as maybe bulk or a mouthfeel.
10:25And canola oil really just doesn't really do much for flavor.
10:29Less than one percent of dried onions, dried garlic.
10:32Spicy citrus and basil.
10:34So everything dry, not fresh.
10:36There's not necessarily anything wrong with dried spices.
10:39Fresh herbs are delicate.
10:40They go bad quickly.
10:42Dried herbs are super shelf stable.
10:43It makes the production process a lot faster and more inexpensive.
10:48The Prego doesn't have sugar in it.
10:50And usually that's the crutch of sauces like this.
10:52You know, tomatoes are so naturally sweet that if you just take a tomato puree and cook it longer,
11:00while that water evaporates, you get a higher sugar content product.
11:04It has a market, but it's kind of the bare minimum of tomato sauce.
11:08I don't think they're going to be by this one anytime soon.
11:10Prego.
11:12You're welcome.
11:15Carbone marinara.
11:17You look on the edge here, you can see that it actually has some oil.
11:20Which is not a bad thing.
11:21It always makes me kind of think of the sauce as a little bit better.
11:25A lot of herbs.
11:26This is definitely a little chunkier or home style.
11:30You can see onions, garlic, chunks of tomatoes.
11:33I see real pieces of onion.
11:37Mmm, that's interesting.
11:39You taste a little bit more than tomato.
11:41So far, this is the best balance in the city that we've had.
11:45It has some good seasoning.
11:47With the amount of onion and garlic in here, this might be homemade.
11:51They fooled me.
11:52I like the consistency because it's not just puree.
11:55The texture is more like a marinara.
11:58Like this consistency means that using fresh tomato.
12:01It's going to hold on to that pasta, but it also isn't so thick and so jammy.
12:08It has a little flow to it.
12:09I think they're using fresh ingredients because there you can see a piece of basil.
12:13This is probably the best sauce we've tasted so far.
12:15I'd be very surprised if this is out of a jar.
12:18And if it is, they're doing good work.
12:23Carbone.
12:24So Carbone is a restaurant in Manhattan.
12:27And it's kind of a red sauce joint.
12:28They have a sauce line, not dissimilar from Rayo's, but by far a much better product.
12:36Onions, olive oil, garlic, and there's no preservatives in here, no citric acid.
12:41And that kind of really shines through.
12:42I think the texture of it is closer to a marinara.
12:45Imported Italian tomatoes.
12:47Italian tomatoes are more sweet.
12:49So this is why I don't taste a lot of acidity.
12:52It all depends on the process you use, the supporting ingredients you use.
12:56And they use fresh ingredients.
12:58So this definitely has some really good branding.
13:00And I think as far as jarred sauces go, it stands up to its reputation.
13:04I really like it.
13:05They fooled me.
13:06I thought this was a homemade sauce.
13:09Good and Gather organic marinara pasta sauce.
13:12It has that brownish, rusty, orangey thing.
13:15More puree part.
13:17A lot of herbs.
13:19Oregano, garlic.
13:21It doesn't look like it's going to be a good one.
13:24So bad.
13:25It has a little bit of tomato flavor, but it's kind of flat.
13:28Tastes fake.
13:30Tastes way too acidic.
13:32Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
13:34So much sweet.
13:35You can see herbs.
13:36You can see garlic.
13:37I'm not tasting it.
13:39Textures, I don't like it because it's more puree.
13:42It has a little of that baby food texture with some chunks in it, but the chunks are just there
13:47for visual like effect less than flavor.
13:50They haven't done too much to it.
13:52So it might be like an organic sauce.
13:54The worst one that I've tasted all day.
13:57Good and Gather.
13:59Organi marinara pasta sauce.
14:01Good and Gather is a target brand.
14:03So you can get this at probably every target in the country and you should not.
14:07It's non-GMO and it is organic.
14:09But it doesn't make it delicious, unfortunately.
14:11They don't add any sugar, but what I taste is so sweet.
14:17Maybe the type of the tomato they use it.
14:20These are really, really bad tomatoes.
14:22I would never buy this again if I bought it one time.
14:28365 by Whole Foods, organic marinara pasta sauce.
14:32So we have more orange-ish sauce.
14:35It looks more like a salsa than a marinara sauce.
14:38It smells like garlic.
14:43So it's not super tomato forward.
14:45I taste herbs first.
14:46All you feel over here is just the garlic.
14:48Tons of oregano, probably other spices in there too.
14:51A lot of acid, no sweetness.
14:54I like the texture.
14:55Really watery.
14:56It's definitely going to have tomato puree as its first ingredient.
14:59I would be shocked if it wasn't, but this has a lot more chunkiness to it.
15:03I think this is Whole Foods 365, organic, extra zesty tomato sauce.
15:11I was right.
15:13365, Whole Foods Market, marinara.
15:17And it's their organic one too.
15:19It has extra virgin olive oil, is no sugar added, right?
15:23And it's a marinara sauce.
15:24I think that it's closer than a lot of the other ones to that texture of a marinara sauce.
15:29Organic garlic puree is probably a shelf-stable processed form of garlic.
15:34And it's probably a step up compared to dried garlic.
15:38I really like it.
15:39This is certainly not my favorite.
15:44Vertoli, traditional marinara sauce.
15:46There's a little bit of that kind of oil staining on the sides.
15:49Also looks more like salsa.
15:53This tastes like a tomato soup you might get on an airplane in 1992.
15:59You don't taste a lot of the tomato.
16:00It's not about the tomato.
16:02It's about covering up how bad the tomatoes are.
16:04This is really acid.
16:06Even though there's big chunks of herbs in there, it's more for looks.
16:09It has to look like a little bit of oil.
16:11It's more watery.
16:12I don't like the color.
16:13I don't like the flavor.
16:14I don't like the texture.
16:17Oh, Bertoli.
16:19Bertoli doesn't say where they come from, the tomato.
16:22Their tomato puree is water and tomato paste.
16:26That means their number one ingredient was tomato paste,
16:29which is bottom of the barrel tomato product mixed with water to thin it out into what's
16:36considered a puree.
16:38Tomato paste is one of my favorite ingredients to cook with,
16:40but not when you want to make a marinara sauce.
16:42So this sauce, as with a lot of the sauces we've seen today, uses citric acid.
16:47It's a helper to maintain the color of the tomato.
16:51Any jarred tomato product needs to be a certain amount of acidity.
16:55The pH has to be below 4.6, which is pretty acidic, in order to prevent botulism.
17:01If the tomato cannery gets very ripe tomatoes that are perfect,
17:06they're not going to be below that threshold.
17:09So they use citric acid.
17:11Love for me.
17:12This would take a little bit of work to make it good.
17:14Bertolli homey will make this product better.
17:20Barilla marinara sauce.
17:22This is definitely cooked at a lower temperature.
17:24Red, red color, so no orange.
17:27It has the right texture for marinara, where it's not too reduced.
17:32The tomato is not in the center of this marinara sauce.
17:36Like, it's sweet.
17:37It's overloaded with garlic and oregano.
17:40The texture of the sauce is really, really kind of nice.
17:43It's not too liquidy.
17:45It's not too, like, dense or firm.
17:47I'm going to say Trader Joe's.
17:49Trader Joe's basic marinara sauce.
17:52Oh, this is the Barilla.
17:54Barilla.
17:55Italian brand pasta, Italian brand sauce.
17:57When it comes to the jarred sauces, always heat them up.
18:00Bring them to a gentle simmer.
18:02If you're in a pinch, take the lid off, throw it in the microwave.
18:04You don't want to just take cold sauce and put it on your pasta.
18:07When something cold is like, doesn't have a lot of flavor.
18:11One thing that you're always taught as a chef is that the sauce waits for the pasta.
18:15Really cook that pasta, finish cooking it to al dente in the pan,
18:20so that the sauce has time to really be absorbed by the pasta.
18:25You don't throw away the water that you boil the pasta.
18:28You want every noodle to be coated and married with that sauce.
18:31So one of the ways that we control moisture and change viscosity is by loosening it up
18:37with a little bit of pasta water.
18:39Natural flavor is nothing.
18:41Natural flavors are plant or animal derived products that are made in a laboratory.
18:48And there's very little regulation on what it actually is.
18:52They belong in perfumes, not in food.
18:54As far as jarred sauce goes, I think this is kind of mid-range.
18:58This is made for everyone, I think, but not for me.
19:02Yeah, don't buy it.
19:03This one's terrible.
19:06Newman's own marinara pasta sauce.
19:09What do we got here?
19:10More tomato sauce.
19:12It's more dense puree.
19:14It's a little more reduced than the past two sauces we tried.
19:16A lot of herbs, smooth texture.
19:20It's kind of a medium tomato flavor.
19:22It's not right in the center, but almost.
19:26Better balance of sweetness and acidity.
19:29I think that it could use a little more on the herb side.
19:31I'm not really fan of this texture.
19:34It's not like heavy on the chunks.
19:36It's just there visually for a visual appeal.
19:38Tastes like they're using the scraps of something else.
19:42Oh, is this Paul Newman?
19:44Newman's best?
19:45Is that what it is?
19:46Yep.
19:47It is Newman's own.
19:48Not Newman's best.
19:49How do you hate on Paul Newman, right?
19:52He was great.
19:53He gets a lot of charities.
19:54On 100% profit app kids.
19:56How do you hate that?
19:57As far as tomato sauces go, it's okay.
20:00Italian style herbs, I don't know.
20:02What does that even mean?
20:04Extra virgin olive oil is the third ingredient.
20:07That's good.
20:08I can't taste any of it though.
20:10Carrot puree.
20:12I've never seen carrot puree on a jar of tomato sauce.
20:16Carrots have a ton of sugar in them.
20:17So this is why it's really sweet.
20:20If you just buy a really good tomato, you actually don't even need to add the carrot
20:24or anything else because they're naturally so sweet.
20:27I don't want to bash on Paul Newman.
20:28I can't.
20:29But you know, a little less carrots, a little more sauce.
20:33It's like not really bad, bad.
20:37Trader Joe's tomato basil marinara sauce.
20:40The color I like, eh?
20:41Really dark red.
20:42Come on.
20:43That's some chipotle red salsa.
20:46I can see chunks of vegetables, chunks of herbs.
20:51Tomato is in the center.
20:53So it's a little on the tinny side or metallic side.
20:56The flavor of sweet and acid are really strong.
21:00I can taste basil on this one.
21:01But if it is, it's definitely dried basil, not fresh basil.
21:05A lot of herbs covering up the fact that these are really bad tomatoes.
21:09I don't think it's olive oil if there is oil in this.
21:12This one's pretty bad.
21:13I would use this as an ingredient in cooking if I absolutely had to.
21:18Trader Joe's.
21:19This is probably Trader Joe's salsa.
21:23Putting basil on the label, it needs to be a little more basil forward.
21:29I taste herbs, but I'm not like, oh my gosh, there's basil.
21:32They're using dried basil here.
21:34Try and use fresh herbs if you can, especially if you're going to say it's a tomato basil.
21:38There should be some basil leaves in there.
21:40Basil is so volatile.
21:42If it's not stored properly, if it's not handled properly, it immediately goes bad.
21:50I prefer to use the basil almost in the end.
21:53So it's still going to get cooked, but you're going to get that nice hit of fresh basil.
21:58And then when I'm serving the dish that I'm preparing with it,
22:00I might sprinkle a little bit of fresh basil on right before a guest enjoys the plate of food.
22:06Not the best one we had today, but pretty good.
22:09I like the taste. I like the consistency.
22:14Not when you use dried basil. No bueno.
22:20Mutti, marinara pasta sauce.
22:22This looks homemade.
22:24Red, orange color. A lot oily.
22:27So I get it. Tomatoes have skins.
22:29So inevitably there might be a tomato skin or two, but this is like,
22:33at least we know that there's fresh tomatoes in here.
22:38No, no, no. This is not for me.
22:40The garlic dominated all the flavor in this tomato sauce.
22:44Acidity, very mild.
22:45It's too acidic.
22:47The acid sweetness balance is spot on.
22:50This is well seasoned.
22:52The texture is the best part of this sauce.
22:53The viscosity is incredible.
22:55I think this is a home style sauce.
22:58This feels like a mid to high tier, just for the fact that it has some oil in it.
23:02I'm going to say Victoria.
23:04Mutti.
23:05Mutti is an Italian tomato brand.
23:07I used before, but never marinara.
23:09Good job, guys.
23:11They had me fooled on this one.
23:14The tomatoes are good.
23:15Everything was in balance.
23:16This is by far the closest thing to homemade tasting sauce.
23:20Yeah, they're using olive oil.
23:22There is an actual oil separation.
23:24Tomatoes are 90% water and water and oil don't mix.
23:27You'll see the oil start to float on the top.
23:30That's not a bad thing.
23:31They're not meant to be completely emulsified for long-term shelf stability.
23:36All you do is heat it up in a pan, add a little bit of your pasta cooking water,
23:41swirl it around and the emulsion is back and it's going to be better than ever.
23:45Oil carries flavors, especially from aromatics, especially from herbs.
23:49Chopped tomatoes first and then rosaro tomato puree second.
23:52Rosaro tomato is a tomato that they grew up in Tuscany.
23:57Same kind of profile as the San Marzano tomatoes, just from a different region.
24:02The color is phenomenal on that.
24:04When I go in Italy and maybe I use, you know, some products are totally different.
24:11Mutti or other brands, Barilla, Bertolli, create some recipe just for American palate.
24:22This is a premium quality tomato sauce and it shows.
24:25I'm sorry, I don't like your marinara Mutti.
24:28I do think it could have some more tomato flavor.
24:30These are really good ingredients on this ingredient list and the proof is in the product.
24:40I can smell tomato and I do see a little bit of oil.
24:45It does not look appealing.
24:47It does not look remotely like a tomato.
24:51That's mildly offensive.
24:53I don't taste the real tomato.
24:55That just tastes fake.
24:56The only thing I taste is oregano and garlic.
24:59It's kind of really flat in the mouth.
25:01It could definitely use a lot of salt.
25:03It's too much oil, water also because it's gray.
25:08The texture is not pleasant.
25:09It needs a little more like chunks to it, especially if it's going to be a marinara.
25:13There's no redeeming qualities.
25:16Yo mama's tomato sauce.
25:18I've never actually heard of this one.
25:20This just makes me sad.
25:21I'm sorry guys.
25:22Tomato sauce, marinara, fresh ingredients, premium,
25:25no added sugars.
25:26We'd love yo mama.
25:28My mama might smack me if I gave her this sauce.
25:31Fresh tomatoes.
25:32I'm not sure the fresh tomatoes are doing them a great service here.
25:36And a lot of that probably has to do with they're using
25:39fresh tomatoes that are not in season.
25:41Canned tends to be more reliable, more predictable at the end of the day.
25:47So it's a lot in sodium.
25:49Sodium is one of those things where salt is one of the things that make your food taste good.
25:52So unless they are high blood pressure, I think that they need a little more salt in this.
25:59Victoria marinara sauce.
26:01This looks promising.
26:03Really good smell.
26:04Texture looks nice.
26:06More of that kind of like puree with small chunks in it.
26:10Really good.
26:11Tomato in the center.
26:13I wouldn't say it's in balance by any means.
26:15I'd say it's more on the sweet side.
26:16You don't taste any garlic, any onion, but good.
26:20Good taste.
26:21I love the texture.
26:23You have more body structure.
26:25This one might be the Victoria.
26:27That's the only one I have left in my brain.
26:29This is the Victoria brand, okay?
26:31Where ingredients come first.
26:33You go into Italian shops, you see this.
26:35100% important Italian tomato.
26:37From where in Italy though?
26:38There's no getting around the fact that these tomatoes are not very high quality,
26:42but I think the process that they're going through is actually a very high quality process
26:47because the texture is phenomenal.
26:49Just the quality of the tomatoes is not that great.
26:52Seven ingredients.
26:52No preservatives, no water, no paste, which is also really good.
26:56Seems like this is a very well executed sauce.
26:59The only missing piece is a higher quality tomato and a higher quality olive oil.
27:05I will buy this one.
27:06One of my favorite.
27:10Cravings, spicy Thai basil marinara sauce.
27:13Texture looks nice.
27:14It's glistening.
27:15It's glossy.
27:16It's velvety.
27:17I can see that the way the basil.
27:19Which again, tends to be an indicator that we're getting a sauce that's a little bit better,
27:23but who knows?
27:25I tasted really deliciousness up front and then the back acid and heat.
27:30This one has a decent tomato flavor.
27:32It tastes like fresh basil.
27:34Spicy and CDD.
27:37It's too strong.
27:38I can't really taste much after the heat kicks in.
27:42I don't think the marinara need to be spicy.
27:45I like spicy food, so I'm not mad at it.
27:48I was not expecting spicy tomato sauce right now.
27:51The tomato need to be the star, the king of the sauce.
27:56In this case, it's not the king.
27:58Heat's covering up the tomato a little bit too much, but it's just pretty good.
28:02I'd eat this.
28:03Consistency is good.
28:04It's not really puree puree.
28:06It has some of the markers of what people might charge a lot of money for.
28:10A little bit of heat's great.
28:11And this is probably marketed towards that.
28:14They wouldn't just call this marinara sauce.
28:16It's probably spicy something.
28:19Cravings by Chrissy Teigen.
28:21Oh my gosh.
28:23This ain't bad.
28:24Spicy Thai basil marinara.
28:27Thai basil and Italian basil are two completely different flavor profiles.
28:32It's more spicy.
28:33It's more bitter.
28:34It has more of that fennel or that licorice flavor to it.
28:37This is the first time we're seeing tomato pulp on a label, which I think is really interesting.
28:42It's one of the things I commented about is the texture.
28:44The viscosity is incredible.
28:46It's shiny.
28:47It's an ingredient that you see in both Italy and in Spain,
28:52but you don't really see that in the United States at all.
28:57It's different marinara.
28:58This is, you remember this marinara.
29:00For what this is, which is a spicy Thai basil marinara,
29:04it's very well produced.
29:06If that is what she wants to be spicy,
29:09she created this perfect spicy marinara.
29:13Perfect marinara for her.
29:14I wouldn't normally go out of my way to buy a product like this,
29:17but I'm glad I tasted it and respect.
29:21Now let's see which tomato sauces our experts liked the most and the least.
29:26My favorite out of all of them was Carbone, the best tomato flavor.
29:29It was well-rounded.
29:31It had some oil in it.
29:32The texture was great.
29:33The balance was great.
29:34It hit a lot of the hallmarks of what I would consider a good jarred sauce.
29:38I thought they tricked me into thinking that was homemade.
29:41I also, surprisingly enough, enjoyed the great value.
29:43The ingredients are fresh.
29:45Tomato are in the center.
29:46It was kind of nicely balanced.
29:48I'm shocked as you are.
29:50I really appreciate the gravings with a spicy Thai basil.
29:54I thought that was phenomenal.
29:55They use fresh ingredients.
29:56They use good ingredients.
29:58The texture was extraordinary.
29:59For the spicy people, they love spicy.
30:02I think that is perfect.
30:03The clear winner for me was the Mutti.
30:06It was real ingredients.
30:08Tomato flavor, texture was spot on.
30:11The acid sweetness balance was spot on.
30:14I would feed that to my family.
30:16As for the ones that I didn't like,
30:18Prego.
30:19It tasted, for lack of a better term, processed.
30:21It doesn't have any balance.
30:22It was overly sweet.
30:23I think it didn't have a good tomato flavor.
30:25I don't want to feel just garlic or have acidity.
30:29The good and gather is just really weak ingredients,
30:32not thoughtfully put together.
30:34It seems like a product was just rushed out.
30:37My least favorite today is classical marinara.
30:40You just feel acidity, garlic, onion.
30:43The tomato was not in the center.
30:45So we tasted a lot of tomato sauces today.
30:47All in a day's work.
30:49A lot of these sauces are actually a pretty good starting point.
30:51Like add a little bit of the extra virginity that you like,
30:55or salt, or basil.
30:58Loosen it up with some pasta water
31:00and add lots of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
31:03But making it fresh is always going to be better.
31:05Good extra virgin olive oil,
31:07whole peeled tomatoes crushed by hand,
31:09a pinch of salt.
31:09It's almost as easy as taking off the lid of a pre-made sauce
31:14and pouring it into a pot.
31:15Enjoy your marinara.
31:16Buon appetito.
31:19Go ahead.
31:19.
31:19.
31:19.
31:19.
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