In the red zone

Jarred tomato sauces have come a long way, in terms of quality and variety. Several popular brands were put to a taste test. Which is the best?

By Keri Fisher

For The Inquirer

We were a Ragu family. That is, we were until my mother saw a commercial in which a man held up a jar of Prego and said, "The first ingredient in Prego is tomatoes," then held up a jar of Ragu and said, "The first ingredient in Ragu is water." My mother switched her loyalty the next day.

The jarred sauces of today are a far cry from those of my youth. The first ingredient in most jars now (including Ragu) is tomatoes, and gone are the lengthy lists of chemical ingredients and several different types of sugar.

In fact, a look at the ingredients of all of the jarred sauces on the market shows remarkably similar lists: tomatoes, sugar, oil, onion, garlic and spices.

Don't mistake consistency for a lack of variety. Since Ragu, the first national jarred pasta sauce, debuted in 1937, dozens of brands have been introduced, creating a $1.7 billion industry.

And each brand offers a plethora of flavored tomato sauces, from ricotta-Parmesan and cabernet marinara to sausage and peppers and vodka sauce.

You can stock up your pantry for less than $3 per jar, or go all out and spend $10 or more on a specialty sauce. Movie stars and culinary celebrities alike are peddling their own sauces, as are restaurants whose sauces have gained national recognition.

So, are any of these new and fancy sauces any better than the Ragu I grew up with? Or are the old favorites the true standouts?

To find out, we held a blind tasting of seven popular brands of spaghetti sauce in the plainest flavor available (marinara or tomato and basil). The 12 tasters evaluated the sauces on flavor and texture. Despite the similar ingredient lists of all the sauces, tasters noted marked differences in acidity levels, sweetness, and tomato flavor.

Rao's, from the famous New York restaurant of the same name, topped the ratings - and the price list, at $9.99 for a 24-ounce jar. (We found it for as low as $7.99 at other stores.) Tasters liked the "fresh" flavor and "homemade taste."

But cost was certainly not the only indicator of which sauces would rate best with our tasters.

Overall, they preferred chunky sauces that weren't too sweet; lower-rated sauces were dismissed as "too saccharine-tasting." In fact, only Rao's and second-place finisher Classico escaped such comments and are the only two sauces that don't contain any added sugar.

High-priced organic sauce Muir Glen ($5.24 for 25.5 ounces), on the other hand, was panned for its heavily vegetal flavor and "too smooth" texture.

Though Rao's was the clear winner, the steep price makes it hard to recommend. Classico, though a distant second, was still deemed good enough by our tasters, and, at $2.99 for 26 ounces, was the second-cheapest sauce in the tasting.

If you can't make your own, Classico is clearly your best bet.