The Results of Our Marinara Cook-off

In this video, I'll share the surprising results of our marinara sauce cookoff competition.

Please subscribe and leave comments below!

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll share the surprising results of our marinara sauce cookoff competition.

We eat a lot of pasta with red sauce in our house.  It's one of my daughter's staples, so we go through a couple of jars of marinara sauce a week.  Our favorite jarred sauce BY FAR is this Giant brand sauce.  Granted, it's their high end white label brand called "Taste of Inspirations", but it is the BEST thing going and in my area, it only costs $4 a jar.  Now that IS more expensive than Prego or Ragu, but the other front runners in our taste test were Rao's and Victoria's and they are both like $8 a jar, which at the rate we eat marinara sauce, would destroy our grocery budget. 

So, after some taste tests, we have come to believe that the Giant brand is probably produced by the same people who make Rao's.  It tastes pretty similar.  Are you wondering how it is different from Prego or Ragu?  The good sauce is brighter tasting, a little tarter, a little oilier (in a good way), and less sugary.  It's SO good. 

But here is the thing - I stopped getting my groceries from Giant and now get them from Walmart.  And I just can't bring myself to go into Giant as often as I would need to in order to stock up (particularly during a pandemic).  So -- I found a good knock-off recipe for Rao's marinara sauce and decided to do a cook-off to test out the different brands of tomatoes.

I'll include the recipe in the description to this video, but essentially it involves 2 28oz cans of whole tomatoes -- they specify San Marzano tomatoes.  Here's the process -- it's simple.  You put the 2 cans of whole tomatoes in a bowl and squish them with your hands until they are broken up.  While you are doing this -- remove any hard membranes and ribs.  Then heat up 1/4c of very good quality extra virgin olive oil (this is the kind I used) on med low and add 2oz of chopped salt pork -- let the fat render for 5 minutes and scoop the pork out.  This step is optional, but it does make the sauce taste better. Then add 3TB of minced onion, sautee for 3 minutes and add 2 cloves of minced garlic and sautee for 30 seconds before dumping in the squished tomatoes and their juices.  At this point, you are going to simmer this for at least an hour before adding a pinch of dried oregano and about 1TB of chopped fresh basil.  I added at least 2 teaspoons of salt and some pepper to taste.  And that's it -- it's a very simple recipe. 

So, we did 4 batches with different tomatoes:
- Batch 1 was Cento's San Marzano tomatoes but they were crushed.  I know they said to use whole tomatoes, but I thought I'd try this out since I had always used crushed tomatoes for marinara sauce in the past.  These cost $3.36 per can at my Walmart, which is fairly pricey.
- Batch 2 was Cento's San Marzano whole tomatoes, which were also $3.36 per can.
- Batch 3 was Hunts whole tomatoes (type of tomato not specified) at $1.64 per can.  And finally,
- Batch 4 was Walmart brand Great Value whole tomatoes (again, type not specified), which were the cheapest at $.94 per can.

We used the same method to sautee everything, but ran out of simmering space on the stovetop, so Batch 3 ended up simmering in the oven and Batch 4 simmered in a crock pot.  Are you ready for our ratings?  The one we all liked the best was Batch 4 -- the Walmart brand cheapo whole tomatoes!  Then Batch 3 -- Hunts, then Batch 2 the San Marzano whole tomatoes, and finally -- in distant last -- were the San Marzano crushed tomatoes.  The winner tasted almost identical to Rao's and our favorite Giant brand -- it was bright, tangy, and had just the right amount of oil.

So, it turns out that at least with our taste buds, San Marzano tomatoes were not only not required, but did more poorly than the non-specified whole plum tomatoes.  And crushed tomatoes didn't cut it at all -- the texture was appalling and the taste was much duller than the sauce made with whole tomatoes.  Looks like I'm done buying crushed tomatoes, although I may have to come up with some alternatives to squishing them by hand if I'm in a hurry -- I think a quick spin in the blender will work.  The other fun finding was the the slow cooker on high was a great way to simmer the sauce since it seemed to prevent the liquid from evaporating as much, resulting in a juicier sauce. . . .

[LibertyFrederick]

My dad owned his own restaurant for 24 years. He raised me to make my own sauce both for cost effectiveness and better taste. Thank goodness for slow cookers! I only wish I had learned how to can since defrosting frozen sauce is a bit of a pain.

[vilkoskorlich]

When you look at an Italian-American restaurant menu, a large portion of the dishes will most likely be in a red sauce; manicotti, stuffed shells, baked ziti, chicken parmesan, eggplant parmesan etc…. This sauce originates from Naples and comes from the Italian word, Pomodororo., “There was a simple ONE of GARLIC, oil, and Tomatoes called SUGO, supposedly because it was made quickly, as soon as the mariners’ wives spotted their husbands returning fishing boats in the distance.”
Are San Marzano tomatoes the best? These tomatoes have a huge reputation and boast a Protected Designation of Origin status (DOP, or sometimes written as PDO - Denominazione d'Origine Protetta) which specifies the precise cultivar, processing method and region in which the tomatoes can be grown.

A class action lawsuit alleges that San Marzano tomatoes sold by Cento Fine Foods are misrepresented and are really less desirable tomatoes. Cento Fine Foods sells canned tomatoes from Italy labeled as “Certified San Marzano” tomatoes, but the tomatoes are not the type of tomatoes that consumers expect when they make their purchase. Allegedly, the San Marzano tomatoes used in many Italian tomato sauces are sought after by consumers for their meaty quality, low seed quantity, elongated shape, and low acidity. According to the Cento tomatoes class action lawsuit, Cento sells their certified San Marzano product for around twice the price of other tomatoes.
Although Cento San Marzano tomatoes are labeled with Consortium seals, Sibrian claims that the tomatoes sold by the company are not actually San Marzano tomatoes. Sibrian references DNA testing allegedly done on Cento products in 2014 and 2019.
In 2019, a similar analysis was carried out at the same laboratory. This testing reportedly analyzed six seed samples from Cento tomatoes against the standard of San Marzano tomato seeds.
Like in the 2014 testing, none of the samples were found to be genetically identical, according to the testing summary. These samples were allegedly between 65 and 80 percent similar to the certified seeds.
Sibrian claims that, because there are significant genetic differences between San Marzano seeds and Cento tomato seeds, they cannot be classified as true San Marzano tomatoes.
Fraudulent Certification
Sibrian claims that Cento tomatoes are not certified as real San Marzano tomatoes by the Consortium and that, instead, “[Cento] labels imitate the labels of San Marzano Tomatoes which are certified by the Consortium even though the Products are not ‘San Marzano’ tomatoes.”