The Worst Store-Bought Pasta Sauce Is A Watery Mess

Your Italian nonna might gasp and clutch her pearls at the thought of picking up some pasta sauce from the grocery, but we're not mad at a store-bought pasta sauce. Not everyone has the time or patience to tediously stir a bubbling pot of Sunday gravy for hours to coax all the flavors out — sometimes, you just want a quick batch of spaghetti on a weeknight. That's why, when we ranked 15 brands of jarred pasta sauce, we kept a keen eye on which contenders rose to the pack. These included those that took well to doctoring up with fresh veggies, meat, or other loving additions that upgrade store-bought sauce to something we actually want to eat.

Hunt's canned marinara, however, was simply beyond help. From the second it poured from the metal lip of its container, we could tell that it was far too watery to provide a satisfactory coating for pasta. Rather than adhering to noodles, it simply pooled in the bottom of our bowls, providing a visual that was almost as disappointing as the flavor. While nothing about Hunt's tasted bad, according to our reviewer, it was also nothing extraordinary. Combined with the textural struggles, Hunt's ended up at the bottom of our list. We're not the only ones who thought so, either, as internet commenters are not especially kind to this sauce.

Strangely, most of the good reviews on Hunt's came from folks who were pleased by the thin texture of the sauce, proving that there is a buyer for just about every product. Plenty of folks shared our issues with this brand, however. "It tastes like tin can. Very metallic!" complained one Kroger shopper who initially turned to Hunt's due to its tellingly low price point. That was one of the kinder reviews, since many folks were irate that Hunt's has apparently changed its formulation, leading to a thicker product that somehow managed to be gooey and full of an undesirable taste of garlic that wasn't there before.

"By itself, Hunt's makes a sweet pasta sauce of low interest in taste and texture," one commenter on Quora noted, with a particularly sick burn: They suggested a laundry list of alterations to make the sauce edible, begging the question of whether it wouldn't make more financial sense to just shell out for a jar of Rao's or something of equal quality in the first place (and if Rao's is one of Ina Garten's faves, it's good enough for us). Of course, given the long list of the best substitutes for marinara sauce, there's undoubtedly something in your kitchen that will serve you better than Hunt's, even when your pantry is at its barest right before grocery shopping.