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One of the most comforting dishes for a Sunday family feast is a bowl of spaghetti with a perfect red sauce. However, making homemade sauce requires hours in the kitchen. Thankfully, dozens of marinara sauce line store shelves offering a homemade taste in a jar. One option gains its inspiration from New York City’s Carbone Restaurant.
Carbone is the brainchild of Queens-raised chef Mario Carbone and his partners at Major Food Group, chef Rich Torrisi and entrepreneur Jeff Zalaznick. The New York Italian-American restaurant has since become a celebrity hot spot known for classic dishes with a sprinkle of old-school nostalgia, like veal marsala, lasagna bianco, and rigatoni with spicy vodka sauce to the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Kendal Jenner, Rhianna, and the Biebers on any given night. The restaurant, which opened in 2013, quickly earned a Michelin star. Though it has since lost its star, it has continued to see success, opening locations in Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Hong Kong.
Jars of Carbone’s marinara sauces from Carbone Fine Foods became available in small production batches on the East Coast in 2021. Since then, the brand has added additional red sauces, Alfredo options, and pizza sauces priced around $10 a jar, all certified as made with Project non-GMO ingredients. These options became available while expanding distribution nationwide.
Today, Carbone sauces are available in many major grocery stores as well as via Amazon. With such an expansive group of options available, we want to know if the sauces are worth your investment. While they are less expensive than a bowl of pasta at Carbone’s restaurant, spending $10 for a jar of sauce is pricey. To decide, I visited my local grocery stores and Amazon delivery, purchasing 11 of the brand’s top pasta sauce options and taste-testing each one. Here are my thoughts.
Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.