Completely Transform That Jar Of Store-Bought Marinara Sauce With One Ingredient

Busy weekday evenings are just a fact of life. You worked all day and you're tired, but that doesn't change the fact that you and your family need to eat. You trudge into the kitchen, open the pantry, and the angel choir starts singing once you see dry spaghetti noodles and a jar of marinara sauce. Maybe you even have some frozen meatballs and shredded parmesan cheese on hand, and you're in business. Dinner is served — and with minimal effort on your part.

While store-bought marinara sauce has certainly been the MVP in quick, thrown-together dinners for us all, sometimes it can taste a bit bland. However, there is a secret ingredient you can turn to in order to take your jarred marinara sauce up a notch. And don't worry, it's another pantry staple with a long shelf life that will add maybe a handful of seconds onto your cook time. It may sound weird at first, but we promise that fish sauce can totally transform a jar of store-bought marinara and give it a more robust flavor.

If adding fish sauce — an ingredient typically seen in Asian cooking — to an Italian pasta dish doesn't sound quite right, just know that ancient Romans put it on everything, so this suggestion isn't totally out of left field. The reason fish sauce works so well in marinara is because it gives the sauce a much-needed umami boost. Balancing flavors is key to a successful dish, and if you have too much or too little of one of the five taste elements — that is, sweetness, saltiness, sourness, bitterness, and umami — your final product will lack depth and taste one-dimensional. Simply put, it will be obvious you dumped a jar of marinara onto some spaghetti and did nothing else.

Store-bought tomato sauce can lean heavily on sweetness, and maybe even sourness thanks to the acidity of the tomatoes. Adding about a tablespoon of fish sauce to the marinara while it simmers brings both umami and saltiness to the sauce. This simple addition will bring a savory component to your dish, and the extra salt will help the taste of the tomatoes shine. Since fish sauce is fermented and has a high salt content, a bottle of this stuff lasts a long time, usually up to two to three years, so it's easy to always have some on hand when you find your marinara sauce could use a little something extra.