Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce Brands

How To Low Sodium Marinara Sauce

To print the full recipe please see the recipe card below.

Spray a non-stick pan with cooking spray. Set to medium-low heat.

Cook the onions until theyre translucent and add the tomato sauce and tomato paste then water. Stir in all the spices, and let the sauce simmer on low for 30 minutes. Adding in ground beef is optional.

Serving size: 1/2 cup.

• 15 oz no salt added tomato sauce
• 8 tablespoons of no salt added tomato past
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 tsps garlic, diced or minced
• 1 1/2 tsps ground oregano
• 2 tbsps leaves basil
• 1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 1/2 cups of water

Bertolli Organic Traditional Olive Oil Basil & Garlic

Pasta sauce is one of the top sources of cancer-fighting lycopene in the American diet thanks to the Italian gravys use of cooked tomatoes. Bertolli doubles down on the benefits by using organic tomatoes, a variety that research suggests may have higher levels of these disease-fighting polyphenols and vitamin C than conventionally-grown varieties. Thats why were even more disappointed Bertolli chose to bog down this sauce with sugareven if it is organic.

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Homemade Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce

Nutrition Information The information shown is provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be substituted for a doctors or nutritionists advice.Please understand that not everyones sodium requirements are the same, therefore some recipes may be higher than youre allowed. Always consult with your doctor for your recommended daily sodium allowance.

As always, please let me know how you like this recipe in the comments! I get motivated when I hear from you and am interested to learn about how you liked and served this Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce recipe. And please leave a comment or rating and share any tips you might have.

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For Nights When You Can’t Make It From Scratch

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Theres nothing wrong with spending the day low-and-slow simmering a homemade pasta saucewhether its chock-full of ground meats, vegetarian-friendly and packed with herbs, or not even a red sauce at all. Who wouldnt want an an-hours-long-simmered sauce piled atop a mound of spaghetti? Its comfort food at its finest. But, when youre short on time, having a good jarred pasta sauce in your pantry is a must. You can start with these store-bought sauces and add your own touches, too.

From classic marinara to creamy alfredo, here are the best-jarred pasta sauces.

This jarred classic, produced by the famous Raos restaurants, is what you always want to have on hand in your pantry. According to Raos, the sauce has “no tomato blends, no paste, no water, no starch, no filler, no colors, no added sugar.

Raos has many different varieties of sauces, but we especially love the Tomato Herb option, full of onions, garlic, basil, and oregano. Its versatile, so it pairs well with meat dishes, pasta dishes, and pizza, and is even great for dipping . Each 1/2-cup serving contains 420 milligrams of sodium and 4 grams of sugar .

Bertolli Tomato & Basil

Ingredients: Diced Tomatoes in Juice , Tomato Purée , Basil, Sugar, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Onions, Salt, Garlic, Spices, Natural Flavors

Appearance & Consistency: Bertolli’s sauce is like Christmas all bottled up: It’s chock full of green basil flakes floating around in a deep red, extra chunky sauce.

Taste: Popping this jar open was like sticking my nose directly into a basil plant. Unfortunately, the nauseating level of sweetness overpowered both the bright basil and tomato.

Eat This, Not That! Verdict:

I wish this sauce were lower in sugar because it had massive potentialbefore I dolloped the stuff onto a slice of toast. The lumpiness also didn’t work in Bertolli’s favor.

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What To Look For In A Store

When buying a pasta sauce Ive got a few must-haves, otherwise the sauce just doesnt make it into the shopping cart. The points I list below are pretty important and will assure you that what you are buying is healthy and tastes good.

Aim for sauces with the following

Limited ingredients: In my opinion, youve got to be able to pronounce the ingredients you see on the label. No unpronounceable stuff, and no sketchy ingredients like fillers and coloring. The fewer ingredients, the better. And keep it simple! Tomatoes and a few spices will do.

No added sugar: Youd be surprised at some of the hidden sugars in tomato sauces on the grocery store shelf. Some of the ingredients you may not even recognize as sugar, like cane juice crystals, rice syrup, and maltodextrin.

Clean ingredients: If there are added ingredients, theyve got to be clean and healthy. Sometimes a good pasta sauce will have a little olive oil added for example, and thats okay. Its when you get inflammatory oils or oils that are hydrogenated added to the sauce that youve got to take a second look. Learn more about oils here, to be informed.

Other nutritional factors: Watch the sodium content. The recommended intake of sodium per day in adults is 2300mg. But some jarred pasta sauces can have as much as 500mg per ½ cup serving! Keep an eye on the fat content in the sauce you buy.

The Meatball Shop Classic Tomato Sauce

Ingredients: Imported Italian Whole Peeled Tomatoes, Fresh Onions, Olive Oil, Salt, Fresh Garlic, Oregano, Chili Flakes, Bay Leaves

Appearance & Consistency: Though this sauce did have some oil separation, a quick stir lent it the velvetiness I’d hoped for. Given the fact that I spotted a few minced garlic cloves floating around, I expected this to taste a lot like the allium.

Taste: Imagine you had the time to simmer fresh tomatoes and smoky spices on the stovetop. What a fantastic visualization, right?! Well, The Meatball Shop Classic Tomato Sauce will bless your plate of penne with homemade results sans kitchen time.

Eat This, Not That! Verdict:

If you’re ever fortunate enough to walk into one of the swanky New York-based locations of The Meatball Shop, you’ll realize how this sauce smells just like it. The topper was tangy and umami-rich, but surprisingly not spicy at all despite its inclusion of chili flakes. This sauce wasn’t too robust or complex, rendering it perfect for meatballs or ragù.

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Everyday Value Organic Marinara

Ingredients: Organic Diced Tomatoes, Organic Tomato Purée, Organic Garlic Purée , Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Organic Onions, Salt, Organic Garlic, Organic Basil, Organic Oregano, Organic Black Pepper

Appearance & Consistency: All of the star ingredientsgarlic, onions, basil, and oreganowere eye-catchingly present in Whole Foods’ organic marinara. Besides an occasional diced tomato, the sauce was generally thin.

Taste: While my palate picked up on all of the individual spices and alliums, the flavors lacked harmonization. This noodle smotherer tasted like it needed more time on the stovetop.

Eat This, Not That! Verdict:

This pick sort of reminded me of my own single attempt at marinara sauce, which involved my impatience inhibiting the spices to simmer long enough to actually marry. In other words, I expected Whole Foods to execute a better sauce than I ever have . . . but I can’t deny that it was nonetheless tasty.

What Are Our Favorites

The photo you see here is whats inside one of our fridges at the moment. Yes, theres a bottle of the red rooster sriracha, but with 80 mg of salt and that extremely mild flavor, its not for daily use since you really have to saturate your food with it.

The bottle of Tabasco was an emergency purchase, after running out of oxygen and needing some ASAP.

And yes, we are well aware that most of these products do not require refrigeration, though it is a best practice to reduce bacterial growth.

Fortunately, the capsaicin content offers excellent antimicrobial and antifungal properties, which makes this one of the safest foods you can eat at any temperature. And guess what? The hotter, the safer!

Based in Venice Beach, Brother Bru Brus is merely 10 miles north of Superfoodlys HQ in Manhattan Beach. The brand has been around for decades, yet no stores in their own backyard of west LA seem to sell it. The reason you see 3 bottles in the fridge is because one needs to stock up when they encounter it. Outside of SoCal, .

Pretty fly for a white guy. photo: opethpainter , via Wikimedia Commons

You may know Dexter Holland as being the singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter for the 90s punk rock band The Offspring.

What you may not know was that he graduated valedictorian from high school and although it was put on hold during his music career, he now has a Ph.D in molecular biology from USC.

Oh yeah and then theres Gringo Bandito.

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How To Make Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce

First start browning the beef and chop up the ground beef finely as it cooks. While that is initially cooking chop up the onion and add to the beef when its almost finished. I like to chop up my onion finely for this sauce and using this Slap Chopper from Amazon makes it quick and easy. Then while those both finish cooking you can measure out the rest of the ingredients. I personally like to let the hamburger and onion really brown up it will soften when simmering in the sauce later. Then add the garlic in for about the last minute of cooking. Both things I think add even more flavor.

Then, add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, seasonings, and sugar and bring the mixture to a light boil for a minute. Be careful of bubbling splatters! Add water, cover pot and turn heat down to a low simmer for 30 minutes or longer, to really bring out the flavor. The longer you simmer it, the more the flavors will blend together and intensify. Also the longer it simmers the thicker it will be. If it gets to thick just add a little more water.

Muir Glen No Salt Tomato Sauce

All Muir Glen products are organic.

Unfortunately, their pasta sauce in glass jars all contain added salt 300 mg per or more serving.

They do make a canned tomato sauce with no salt added. It does use one of the better BPA-free liners on the market.

The ingredients are tomatoes, onion powder, and garlic powder. Its a sugar free spaghetti sauce. Or at least, theres none except for that which is naturally in the tomatoes.

While not the most exciting or tasty on its own, you can easily boost the flavor by adding your own herbs and spices. We like it with oregano and chili pepper flakes.

Per ¼ cup serving, theres only 20 mg of sodium.

Where to buy

Since Muir Glen is owned by General Mills, its a readily available brand. You can buy their organic sauce at Walmart, Kroger, Meijer, Whole Foods, you name it. Thats one of the major reasons it takes the number two slot, since its an easy-to-find brand no matter where you live.

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The Anatomy Of Pizza Sauce

Pizza purists believe that all pizza starts from what is called Neapolitan Pizza. According to the rules proposed by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, the genuine Neapolitan pizza dough consists of wheat flour , natural Neapolitan yeast or brewers yeast, salt and water. You must use fresh Mozzarella from Buffalo Milk. The sauce is uncooked, and made from canned San Marzano Tomatoes and salt. There are even rules as to how to hand roll the dough and even at what temperature those fancy pizza ovens need to be at and that they have to be wood fired.

If you add basil and some extra virgin olive oil to the sauce, it becomes a Neapolitan Pizza Margherita. If you add oregano to the Margherita, then it is classified as a Neapolitan Pizza Marinara. Outside of the Neapolitan rules, people adapted their sauces from family recipes, by the region they were from and the ingredients available. Sauces were modified based on the dough and the crust style.

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And The #1 Worst Pasta Sauce Is Ragu Chunky Tomato Garlic & Onion

Lo and behold the worst of the worst of spaghetti sauce brands. A glance at the name gives you an idea of how you’ll look after spooning this sauce over your pasta: chunky. Full of more sugar than a bowl of Froot Loops cereal and fats entirely from likely pesticide-laden soybean oil, this pick is definitely a Not That!

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Prego Lower Sodium Traditional

It might be good for your heart because it’s lower in sodiumcompared to the other Prego sauces, that is. But if you’re looking for low sodium, check out our best list of healthy spaghetti sauce brands below for an “Eat This”-approved recipe. Because between the excess amount of sugar and inflammatory omega-6s from the canola oil, this sauce really isn’t as heart-friendly as we’d like.

Prego Light Smart Traditional Italian Sauce

We’re pleased by the low-calorie option out of Prego, but they still add sugar as a stand-in for fatan unfortunate substitution as the vitamin A found in tomatoes is a fat-soluble vitamin, which means your body won’t be able to reap its free-radical-fighting benefits without a little drizzle of EVOO. That’s why it’s one of our foods you’re eating wrong.

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Rag Old World Style Traditional

Ingredients: Tomato Purée , Salt, Olive Oil, Sugar, Dehydrated Onions, Dehydrated Garlic, Spices, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder

Appearance & Consistency: Upon twisting open this jar of Ragú, I immediately noticed the chunks floating atop an otherwise runny orange-red sauce. One simple stir confirmed that this sauce isn’t very hearty.

Taste: Average mediocre nothing special. This sauce didn’t pack an extra umami punch, even though Ragú sprinkled romano cheese into the mix. In fact, it could’ve ranked a bit higher on this list if it slashed off a few grams of sugar.

Eat This, Not That! Verdict:

Though Ragú loudly spells out “Our Richest, Thickest Recipe” on its label, it definitely doesn’t deliver. The added Romano cheese didn’t lend any richness to this pasta topper, let alone thicken it up. Besides lacking in the taste and texture departments, Ragú didn’t impress us nutritionally either, given that the sodium and sugar contents per serving are sky-high.

Are There Low Sodium Marinara Sauce Brands

I get it. You dont always want to make everything from scratch. Sometimes you just want to buy a jar of sauce that wont spike your blood pressure, right?

In general, look for a pasta sauce thats less than 150mg sodium per serving. That still may be higher than you want, but you wont break the sodium bank with that amount. You also want to check out the added sugar amount. Ideally, there would be none , but look for one thats as low as you can find. Theres usually sugar added to jarred marinara sauce, but not always. Here are some brands to consider:

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What Hot Sauce Has The Least Sodium

Being connoisseurs of this fine condiment, our knowledge on the selection was already very extensive. Though we did some extra digging around to bring you this list of no sodium and low sodium hot sauce brands and their 25 products with the lowest sodium content.

The lowest will be Brother Bru Brus with 0 mg of sodium, or the other brands tied for that which include some varieties of Daves and Docs Original.

The links point right to the product on Amazon so you can get some in a jiffy.

Trader Joes chili pepper sauce used to be a good sodium-free option, but you know how it goes. As soon as you fall in love with a Trader Joes product, they discontinue it, as they did with their hot sauce a couple years back.

The good news is that the most popular brand in America is also the lowest among the big names.

With only 35 mg per teaspoon, how much sodium is in Tabasco sauce beats every other major brand by a landslide. Its around 65% less than what Cholula, Tapatio, and Texas Petes have. Louisiana Crystal is a full 100 mg more than Tabasco. Franks Red Hot is over 500% higher salt content.

Tabasco remains a solid pick for when you cant be picky, however there are better options.

Hoboken Farms Gourmet Marinara Sauce

This farmer’s market-originated marinara is keto certified with only six carbs and no sugar added. It’s also good for Whole30 and low-sugar dieters, coming in at only three grams of sugar per serving. There are only four ingredients here, not including herbs and spices, and it’s vegan and non-GMO as well.

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The Best Low Sodium Pizza Sauce

Is your favorite pizza New York or Chicago style? Or are you a Neapolitan style purist? How about crust, deep-dish, hand-tossed, or thin crust? Pizza stone or on a pan? What about pineapple? All of these are questions that can start a war over pizza. One thing that is universal and can unite us all is having a killer pizza sauce. Ive modified my recipe and now have the best low sodium pizza sauce.