Story Published:
Mar 25, 2008 at 9:12 AM PST
I love marinara sauce. I can't get enough if it on spaghetti, linguine, rigatoni or ziti. Just pour it on.
Can marinara sauce from a jar be as good as homemade? The taste testers at the Good Housekeeping Research Institute set out to find out.
A basic marinara sauce is made of tomatoes, basil, garlic and onions.
"We found 20 nationally available brands, and we had our volunteers looking for good texture, flavor and color," said Samantha Seneviratne with the institute.
At $9 for a 24-ounce bottle, Rao's Homemade Marinara Sauce isn't cheap, but Good Housekeeping testers voted it their first choice.
"Rao's is made of imported Italian tomatoes, imported olive oil, basil, onions - all really fresh ingredients," said Seneviratne.
The taste testers said the sauce had a rich tomato flavor.
"And I could definitely get a little bit of the herbs and the olive oil, but nothing was too strong. Nothing was too overpowering for me," Seneviratne said.
The makers of Rao's suggest adding a little bit of fresh ricotta to the sauce.
If $9 seems steep, there's Colavita Marinara Sauce, the second place winner at $4.98 per bottle.
"Colavita is all natural. That makes a big difference. It had a really fresh taste to it," said Seneviratne. "The thing I really liked about it is that the tomatoes actually tasted like fresh tomatoes."
And if you want the taste of garlic bread without the fuss, Good Housekeeping recommends the new garlic paste from Amore or S&B.
Good Housekeeping says if you buy the garlic paste in a tube, don't press out too much. A half-inch squeeze is about a teaspoonful and that equals one clove of minced garlic.
By the way, do you know why it's called marinara sauce? Because it held up well on long ship voyages. "Marinara" is the Italian word for "sea fairing."
