Monday, May 4, 2009

Rao's Premium Pasta Sauces

Rao's is a famous Italian restaurant in East Harlem that is known for being impossible to get a reservation. They also have an outstanding line of premium pasta sauces
that are available at select Publix and at Italian/gourmet food markets. (Doris and Epicure carry them). I am not a fan of jar sauce and was fortunate to have homemade sauce on a weekly basis growing up. That said, I have had my share of jar sauce over the years and Rao's marinara is fantastic and easily the best jar sauce I've ever tasted. It costs approximately $9.00 which is expensive for jar sauce but it is worth every penny and still less expensive than going out. They have several options (vodka sauce is great too) but you can't go wrong with the marinara.

Marinara Sauce - 12 jars (32oz) Special

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rao's is ok, but really expensive. I like Mezzetta's Napa Valley Bistro Marinara. It is better than Rao's at half the price.

The Chowfather said...

I'll give that a shot but I've tried some other brands that people said were better and they didn't come close. I agree that it is $$$ BUT it costs more to eat for two at McDonalds...

gail shepherd said...

I think Steve Martorano's sauce, sold at Publix, is the best jarred sauce I've ever tasted. Try the spicy first. It's also $9 and can be hard to find because they sort of shunt it off to the side due to shelf space issues. Please try it. I eat it straight out of the jar.

The Chowfather said...

I have not tried Steve's but I'm a fan of the restaurant and will give it a shot based on your recommendation. Have you tried Rao's marinara? You can eat it out of the jar too

gail shepherd said...

Just bought some today :)

gail shepherd said...

OK, tried it. You're right, it's really good. I had some plain and some on a fresh pizza. Nice and spicy. I think Martorano's still has a slight edge -- might be those san marzano tomatoes -- but i didn't have any so couldn't do a side by side taste test.

The Chowfather said...

Gail,I'll have to do a side by side test as well

Dazy said...

Ya Rao's really do have a premium range of sauces. Once I was gifted one bottle of it.

Anonymous said...

I don't like Raos. Its too thin. Almost watery. It is very tasty. But it also goes bad VERY fast. Like in a couple of days in the refrigerator.

The best sauce you can buy at Publix is LaFamiglia Tomato Basil Masterpiece. I stock up on it when they have their BOGO on it.

As far as Martorano's sauce goes, for $10 a jar I can make my own from scratch. As with everything at Martorano's, its 40% overpriced. Everything has a value.