You Only Need 1 Ingredient To Combat The Sweetness Of Cheap Store-Bought Marinara Sauce

Whether you're making a hearty pizza, a platter of mozzarella sticks, or a heaping pot of pasta, marinara is a quintessential Italian red sauce with dozens of culinary applications. Although making homemade sauce is a relatively accessible process, store-bought marinara varieties are more convenient. After all, simmering tomatoes and aromatics for upwards of 45 minutes isn't exactly ideal when you need sauce on the fly. Still, although store-bought marinara saves you time, it doesn't always have that authentic appeal. Oftentimes, store-bought marinara contains excess sugar, leading to a strangely cloying taste that disrupts the harmony of your favorite red sauce-infused dishes. Luckily, you only need one ingredient to fix too-sweet store-bought marinara, and you probably already have it in your kitchen.

To bring sugary marinara back to center, introduce an acid. Acidic food sources interact with taste receptors on the tongue and in the brain, effectively neutralizing the perception of sweetness. By adding an acidic ingredient to jarred marinara, you can reduce its overpowering sweetness, which allows you to better identify (and enjoy) the tangy, savory, and garden-fresh flavors of the sauce. This simple adjustment gives cheap-tasting marinara sauce a more balanced flavor profile, imbuing it with a taste akin to homemade varieties.

A little bit of acid goes a long way, so you don't need to use up a whole lemon or bottle of vinegar to improve the taste of store-bought marinara. Once you've heated the sauce, start with a small amount of your preferred acid source, tasting as you go, until you achieve a well-balanced flavor.

Although "acid" sounds like a term reserved for the chemistry lab, it's a natural and safe property found in many foods, and you probably have multiple sources of it in your kitchen at this very moment. But which ones work best to improve a store-bought marinara sauce? Consider your options before making a selection.

Citrus juice is a common ingredient for adding acidity to foods, and it's a great choice for jazzing up too-sweet marinara. More specifically, lemon juice can impart a zippy flavor that's bright, familiar, and mingles nicely with the umami-tinted taste of tomatoes. Plus, lemons are a fairly common garnish alongside marinara-based dishes. Lime, grapefruit, and orange may not be the best selections here.

Vinegar is another great choice for curbing the sweetness of jarred marinara sauce. White wine vinegar, which is slightly less sweet than its red counterpart but still has a subtle fruity flavor, adds a homemade touch to the sauce while tempering its sugariness. A splash of distilled white vinegar, which has a sharp, tangy taste but a neutral flavor, can also temper a store-bought marinara sauce's sweetness.

Surprisingly, heavy cream is also acidic. Although it will change the overall vibe of the classic sauce, adding a swirl of velvety, fatty cream can fill out its mouthfeel while combating cloying flavors. Ultimately, there's no right or wrong answer. The only mistake you can make is toughing out too-sweet store-bought marinara when you don't have to. Spare your taste buds (and dinner guests) by sprucing up cheap, sugary marinara with a splash of acid. And if your sauce turns out too acidic, there's a simple fix for that, too.