Spaghetti Sauce With Low Sodium

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 isnt very hearty.

Taste: Average mediocre nothing special. This sauce didnt pack an extra umami punch, even though Ragú sprinkled romano cheese into the mix. In fact, it couldve 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 doesnt deliver. The added Romano cheese didnt lend any richness to this pasta topper, let alone thicken it up. Besides lacking in the taste and texture departments, Ragú didnt impress us nutritionally either, given that the sodium and sugar contents per serving are sky-high.

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 cant deny that it was nonetheless tasty.

Make Spaghetti Sauce Low Sodium For A Healthier Version

This low sodium spaghetti sauce recipe is a simple meal to make without the salt. Im all about making recipes low sodium when I can. Low sodium cooking does NOT have to be bland, boring, or flavorless Its quite the opposite when done right. By building meals around fresh ingredients and bright flavorful spices you can make healthier meals for you and your family. Check out all my low sodium recipes here that are on The Herbeevore. These easy and healthy recipes are fantastic meals for everyone at your table.

When we say low sodium we mean that overall this recipe does not add extra salt or sodium from preservatives. Only you and your doctor know the exact amount of sodium that you should consume, so be sure that you are aligned with a medical professional. Also, our ingredients may differ from yours, so please double check all labels before consuming and this recipe can be a great addition to your happy healthy life.

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Why Is There Sugar In Spaghetti Sauce

Ummm there’s sugar in marinara sauce? Yup. Tomatoes naturally have about four or five grams of sugar per serving however, brands will also add even more sugar to offset the acidic flavor of the sauce.

Just because you need a little sweetness to balance out the flavor, though, doesn’t mean the amount of sugar found in some popular store-bought pasta sauce brands is necessary.

How much sugar are we talking? Here’s a comparison of three popular sauces and the sugar content in each, alongside foods that contain the same amount of sugar.

Yeesh. If you wouldn’t top your spaghetti with three fun-size Butterfinger candy bars, you won’t want to pour a serving of Ragu’s Chunky Sauce on there, either. Thankfully, these brands are some of the worst offendersnot all marinara sauces are this high in sugar. You can make healthier choices by picking the best low-carb spaghetti sauce brands.

Tips For Best Results

• To keep spaghetti whole: Hold a bundle of spaghetti for 20 seconds when you first add it to the pot with boiling water, then push in the rest as the submerged portion of pasta softens.
• Cook to al dente: No one wants mushy pasta!
• Salt the water: For flavor and nonstick results.
• Customize: Adjust to whatever flavours or add-ins you like.
• Serve immediately: But also enjoy leftovers the next day!
• Cooking garlic: turn off the heat before adding it and it will cook with residual heat rather than burning.

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Tips For Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce

To make the sauce more flavorful you can sub in low sodium chicken broth or wine in place of the water that the recipe calls for. There are some comments below about adding wine to the recipe but feel free to do that if you wish. Again adding wine or chicken broth instead of water is optional.

I like to buy the jars of already chopped garlic that are at the grocery store to save time on dicing the garlic myself. You can buy fresh garlic and chop that yourself.

This spaghetti sauce withoutthe ground beef added to it is 1 smart point per serving.

I like to buy the 96% lean ground beef at Wal-mart to add to this pasta sauce. One 2oz serving of this sauce with the ground beef added is 2 smart points.

How To Make Ragu Spaghetti Sauce

Heat your olive oil in a large pan or skillet over medium heat. If using a grill this is 350 degrees F.

Add in the finely chopped onion, carrots, and celery. Cook for about 5-8 minutes until soft. I like to use a food processor to chop up the veggies really small because they cook faster and are less noticeable to the picky eaters.

Add in your minced garlic and then stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Add in the ground beef and cook until all of the pink is gone and the meat is browned. Remember to break it up into smaller pieces as you go. This should take about 10 minutes. Drain the grease and return to the stove.

Stir in the Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper.

Add in the can of crushed tomatoes and chopped parsley. Bring the mixture to a boil.

Reduce the heat to low and allow it to simmer for at least 15 minutes, preferably longer for deeper flavor.

Serve with cooked pasta and then top with parmesan cheese.

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Victoria Low Sodium Marinara

Victoria foods is a higher-end gourmet brand of sauces and none of them contain added sugar. Theyre best known for their vegan Alfredo sauce.

They dont qualify as no salt spaghetti sauce. Just like The Silver Palate, Victoria adds a little sea salt. Its not much. Each half-cup serving has 120 mg, which is 5% of the daily value.

Its made using premium ingredients imported Italian tomatoes, Italian olive oil, onion, garlic, and other spices. Their only drawback is not being organic.

To paint perspective on the salt content, consider that Prego Heart Smart, which comes in glass jar, still contains 360 mg for the same amount. Thats 3x higher than Victoria. The lowest sodium Ragu is 320 mg, which is also roughly 3x higher.

Where to buy

Victoria Fine Foods has been chugging along since 1929 and since their acquisition by B& G Foods several years back, the distribution has increased greatly. You can find them at higher-end supermarkets and natural health food stores. You can also .

My Tips For The Best Low Sodium Pasta Sauce

Since spaghetti is Americas and one of my favorite foods Ive learned a few tips over time while continually trying to make the perfect sauce.

• Dont initially cook the beef all in one thin layer and turn it constantly. Instead add it in large clumps, let the bottom really sear and brown. Then you can start to really chop it up and it breaks down more easily.
• While any no salt added tomato sauce will work using no salt added Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes really makes it extra mouthwatering. Just puree in your food processor to make it into a low sodium tomato sauce. Trust me its worth it!
• Dont be shy adding onion and garlic. These two really add to the majority of the flavor here.
• Allow time to simmer and let the flavors come together and work its magic. It will also allow time for the sauce to reduce and thicken a bit. Just add a touch of water if it gets to thick.
• This homemade low sodium spaghetti sauce recipe can be easily made ahead of time and in large batches. You can then separate into serving portions and freeze for a quick meal in the future. Before freezing spaghetti sauce, allow the mixture to cool completely. It can be stored frozen for up to 4-6 months. To use, simply place frozen sauce in a pot and reheat on the stove until warm. Highly recommended.

Read Also: How To Get Tomato Stains Out

Ragu Old World Style Marinara

Here’s where it starts to get diceyand we’re not just referring to the diced tomatoes. Ragu adds something called “Calcium Chloride” to their crushed tomatoes as a “firming acid.” The additive is Generally Recognized As Safe by the FDA, but we’re assuming Ragu uses it to thicken up their otherwise watery sauces instead of adding more tomato meat. They also use more soybean oil than extra virgin and, like in many Ragu sauces, natural flavor. There are better spaghetti sauce brands to drown your penne in.

How Is This Low Sodium Pasta Sauce Different

This low sodium pasta sauce is full of flavor, compared to many other recipes I have tried. This sauce is more robust than a traditional marinara. It is a bit thicker and has a deeper flavor from the wine compared to the bright flavors of a traditional marinara. I promise you will love it!

I used all the tools in my low sodium toolbox to really pump up the flavor in this recipe.

Also Check: Mumbo Sauce Recipe

What Is The Best Spaghetti Sauce To Buy

The best store bought spaghetti sauce will be one which is low in sodium and has no added sugar. If oil is added, ideally it should be extra virgin olive instead of canola. High amounts of oregano, basil, and garlic will add antioxidants.

Canned tomatoes typically use BPA or bisphenol-S to prevent the acidity from eating away the aluminum. Even the BPA-free linings may be just as dangerous, if not more so, when it comes to their hormone-mimicking effects. For that reason, the healthiest pasta sauces are those sold in glass jars.

Ragu Old World Style Organic Traditional

Like Bertolli, Ragu does right by using all organic products in their Traditional sauce. . Unfortunately, their attempt to do right is foiled by their offenses of adding inflammatory soybean oilwhich, we’re happy to say is at least organic, and thus pesticide- and carcinogen-freeand sugar to the sauce.

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Sodium In Spaghetti Sauce

Spaghetti sauce is among the worst offenders of canned or jarred foods that we use, containing high amounts of sodium. Most name brands seem to average around 470 mg of sodium per 1/2 cup serving and some homemade recipes reach almost 900 mg! After having some form of spaghetti about once a week in the past I didnt want to give up the mainstay of Italian spaghetti sauce and noodles. This is my version of spaghetti sauce that allows you to enjoy the Italian staple without all the sodium at just 88mg per 1 whole cup!

Is The Alfredo Sauce Made With Fresh Cream

The Alfredo is delicious and tastes like its homemade. It has a very creamy texture and is thick and not watery at all like some other brands I have tried. You can really taste that its made with fresh cream! I have now added this to my family meal rotation and will experiment using it with other dishes.

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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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Primal Kitchen Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce

If you’ve gone on any kind of restrictive diet, you might already know about this diet-friendly pick from Primal Kitchen, which boasts an impressive roster of health accolades, from being soy- and gluten-free to being certified Paleo and Whole 30 approved. Plus, it’s made with heart-healthy avocado oil instead of canola or soybean oil, so you’ll get an extra boost of good fats.

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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.

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.

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Whats In This Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

• Diced Tomatoes: I only use nosalt added diced tomatoes, these boxed tomatoes are really great to stock up on! I like boxed tomatoes better because they are BPA free and more eco-friendly than aluminum cans. If you havent read about the dangers of consuming foods stored in BPA cans, head over to Nutrition Facts to read more.
• Fresh Basil

If youre adding a little pepper, Id recommend

• Tellicherry Peppercorns: Its amazing the flavor difference you can get with really good tellicherry black pepper. Amazon has a generic brand tellicherry peppercorn which is the same price is buying pre-ground, and has a million times more flavor so I use these really great tellicherry peppercorns, which I would definitely recommend.

I sometimes add in mushrooms or fresh spinach to the sauce to pack some extra veggies in there. But most of the time its just the simple ingredients, and an insane sauce-to-noodle ratio where Im eating mostly sauce to go with a little bit of pasta.

Low Sodium Pasta Sauce Serving Suggestions

This low sodium pasta sauce can be used for so much more than pasta. Although, I certainly highly recommend it for spaghetti!

Inspired by my love of small plates and Spain, I love to make this low sodium pasta sauce into a baked goat cheese dish. Spoon some of the sauce into an oven-safe bowl and plop a chunk of goat cheese on top of the sauce. Bake at 450F for around 10 minutes, or until the sauce gets bubbly and the cheese is nice and soft and even a little charred on the edges. Serve with some sliced baguette. Youll be in heaven!

Other ideas for this low sodium pasta sauce:

• Homemade pizza
• Spoon over grilled veggies
• Homemade lasagna

Read Also: Fettuccine Alfredo With Ragu Sauce

Rao’s Homemade Sensitive Formula Marinara Sauce

This marinara was formulated without onions or garlic for those who suffer from gastric distress or are following a low FODMAP diet, have IBS, or have many food sensitivities. If you don’t suffer from any of these ailments, don’t bother with this sauce. It’s high in calories and high in fateven if it’s the healthy kind, it should still be eaten in moderation.

How Much Sodium Is In Ragu Spaghetti Sauce

4.1/5

Also, which spaghetti sauce is the healthiest?

7 Low-Carb Spaghetti Sauces to Buy When You Cant Deal With Making Your Own

Similarly, is Ragu spaghetti sauce healthy? And good for you, too. Most tomato-based sauces are low in saturated fat, cholesterol-free and packed with lycopene, an antioxidant thats been linked to protection from prostate cancer. A sauce to pass on is Chunky Ragu Tomato, Garlic and Onion. Its name sounds pretty healthy.

Also Know, what ingredients are in Ragu spaghetti sauce?

Important information. Tomato Puree , Vegetable Oil , High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Dried Onions, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Romano Cheese , Spices, Natural Flavor.

Does Ragu have sugar in it?

RAGÚ Simply SaucesIt contains no added sugar and is made with 100% olive oil and ingredients like tomatoes, onions, garlic, and basil. See Nutrition Information for sugar& calories.

Also Check: Costco Marinara Sauce