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In a Nutshell
We taste-tested 19 brands of pizza sauce you're likely to find at your local supermarket or online. To find the very best ones, we poured each sauce into a bowl and tasted it without knowing which was which. Our winner is Rao's Homemade Pizza Sauce, but we also crowned one runner-up.
Making pizza at home can be as simple or as complex as you'd like. You can follow former Serious Eats culinary director Kenji's New York–style dough recipe and let it cold-ferment for a day, or you can grab premade dough from the grocery store on your way home from work. No matter how much effort you put into the crust, you'll still need cheese, sauce, and toppings—and the sauce plays a major role in the pie's overall flavor.
Some pizzas, like traditional Neapolitan styles, use little more than crushed tomatoes and salt. Others, like New York–style pies, rely on a more seasoned, cooked sauce. You can absolutely make your own—Kenji's New York–style sauce takes about 80 minutes—but on a weeknight, that may not be realistic.
That's where store-bought pizza sauce comes in. To find the best one, we taste-tested 19 brands you're likely to find at your local supermarket. We sampled them in random order, without knowing which was which, tabulated the results, and crowned an overall winner and one runner-up.
The Criteria
Because jarred pizza sauces are meant to be used straight from the jar, we evaluated them with New York–style homemade pizza in mind, where the sauce needs to taste balanced and complete without any doctoring.
A good store-bought pizza sauce should strike a balance between sweetness, acidity, and savoriness. At its best, it delivers bright tomato flavor with enough depth to stand up to cheese and the heat of the oven.
It should strike a balance between the bright flavor of fresh tomatoes and the deeper, concentrated flavor of a long-cooked tomato sauce. Herbs like oregano and basil, along with seasonings such as onion and garlic, are welcome, but they should not overpower the tomato flavor or impart bitterness.
The sauce's consistency is also very important. It should be thick enough to spoon onto dough without running and making the crust soggy, but not so dense that it resembles tomato paste.
Overall Winner
Rao's Homemade Pizza Sauce
Rao's—one of the winners of our marinara sauce taste test—was the clear standout in our pizza sauce tasting, too. It struck the right balance between sweet, tangy tomato flavor and savory herbal depth.
Our associate editorial director, Megan, gave it a rating of 4.5 out of 5 for flavor and a 5 out of 5 for texture and consistency, and called it the "freshest and brightest of the whole bunch." Our editorial director, Daniel, also ranked it highest. "This is sort of the sweet spot of a NY-style pizza sauce," he said. "It's fresh but with some depth, and the dried oregano flavor is present and pleasant."
While our senior editor, Genevieve, found it slightly thicker than she prefers, she agreed it was well-balanced and nicely seasoned.
Unlike several competitors that rely on tomato purée (which in many cases is simply a mixture of tomato paste and water), Rao's is made with Italian whole peeled tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. It also contains olive oil, onions, carrots, garlic, oregano, and basil—ingredients that give it layered sweetness and savory depth without tasting sugary or artificial.
Most importantly, it tasted complete straight from the jar. We wouldn't feel the need to adjust it before spreading it on dough. If you're looking for a classic New York pizzeria–style sauce for homemade pizza, this is the one we'd buy.
Runner-Up
Cento Naples-Style Pizza Sauce
Cento earned the second-highest scores overall and stood out for a different reason than Rao's: its simplicity. It was noticeably chunkier than Rao's, with visible tomato pieces and a thicker consistency. Though its seasoning was more restrained, several tasters appreciated its fresh tomato character. I found it bright and pleasantly sweet, and Genevieve liked that it wasn’t overly salty.
Daniel noted that it would benefit from additional salt, and he and other tasters felt it would benefit from a little extra seasoning, such as dried oregano, to shine fully.
If you prefer a plainer, more tomato-forward sauce—or want something closer to a simple Neapolitan-style base that you can season to your liking—this is a strong choice. We recommend adding a pinch of salt and dried oregano before baking to bring it fully into balance.
The Contenders
- 365 by Whole Foods Organic Pizza Sauce
- Bertolli Gourmet Artisan Garlic Margherita Pizza Sauce
- Bianco DiNapoli New York Style Pizza Sauce
- Bowl & Basket Pizza Sauce
- Cento Naples-Style Pizza Sauce
- Classico Traditional Pizza Sauce
- Cucina Antica La Pizza Sauce
- Don Pepino Pizza Sauce
- Good & Gather Organic Pizza Sauce
- Good & Gather Traditional Pizza Sauce
- Muir Glen Organic Pizza Sauce
- Prego Pizzeria Style Pizza Sauce
- Primal Kitchen Unsweetened Pizza Sauce
- Rao's Homemade Pizza Sauce
- Stop and Shop Homestyle Pizza Sauce
- Trader Joe's Pizza Sauce
- Wegmans Organic Pizza Sauce
- Wegmans Smooth Pizza Sauce
- Yo Mama's Classic Pizza Sauce
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
When we tasted 19 store-bought pizza sauces side by side, a few patterns quickly emerged.
Balance mattered most. The highest-scoring sauces delivered bright tomato flavor with enough savory depth to stand up to cheese and heat. Sauces that leaned too sweet, overly acidic, or aggressively herbaceous fell behind. Texture also played a major role: Watery sauces risked soggy crusts, while overly thick ones veered into tomato paste territory.
Ingredient lists told part of the story. Many lower-ranked sauces rely on tomato purée (a combo of tomato paste and water in most cases) as their base. As noted above,our favorite sauce, Rao's, is made with whole Italian tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, along with olive oil, onions, carrots, garlic, oregano, and basil—ingredients that give it layered sweetness and herbal depth without being cloying or bitter. It was the most complete and balanced straight from the jar.
Cento Naples-Style Pizza Sauce, our runner-up, appealed for a different reason. With its thicker texture and restrained seasoning, it offered bright tomato flavor and flexibility. It benefits from a pinch of salt, but it's a great choice if you prefer a simpler, more tomato-forward base.
For most home cooks looking for a ready-to-use sauce, Rao's is the one we'd reach for first. It strikes the best balance of freshness, seasoning, and texture—no extra tweaking required.
Our Testing Methodology
All taste tests are conducted with brands completely hidden and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample one first, while taster B will taste sample six first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets, ranking the samples according to various criteria. All data is tabulated, and results are calculated with no editorial input to provide the most impartial representation of actual results possible.
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Read the original article on Serious Eats
