Which Grocery Has The Better Marinara?

For anyone who buys jarred sauce, convenience is the goal. It’s meant to be an ingredient you can open, pour, and trust — not something you have to make from scratch or invest a ton of time into.

In addition to convenience, we want a jarred marinara sauce that tastes good and doesn’t break the bank. Perhaps you already have a favorite brand, but for many of us, strolling through the grocery store aisles to pick up marinara can lead to a moment of extreme indecision when faced with seemingly endless options.

The most affordable marinara sauces often come from private-label grocery store brands, making them an appealing option. But are they actually good? To find out, we compared every detail of the private-label pasta sauces from two of the most popular grocery stores, Costco and Walmart. Here’s everything you need to know.

The ingredient list really sets these two sauces apart

When you line up the two jars — Costco’s Kirkland Signature Organic Marinara Sauce and Walmart’s Great Value Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce — the ingredient panels reveal a clear story about how each brand defines quality.

Costco’s offering leans on simplicity, featuring organic vine-ripened California tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil, and a short list of recognizable ingredients, including organic sautéed onions, organic garlic, organic basil, salt, and black pepper. There is no tomato paste or added sugar. The result is a slightly looser sauce that tastes fresh and allows the tomato’s flavor to shine, with olive oil providing a subtle hint of richness.

Walmart’s Great Value Organic Marinara, by contrast, has a more intense and sweet flavor. Its base starts with a tomato purée — made from water and organic tomato paste — and organic diced tomatoes. (This is a chunkier marinara, so if that’s not for you, skip it!)

This tomato base is sweetened with cane sugar, and organic soybean oil replaces olive oil. Walmart’s marinara includes plenty of dried seasonings, giving it a more aromatic and herb-forward flavor thanks to ingredients like organic dried onion, organic garlic powder, organic dried basil, and organic dried oregano.

For shoppers looking for a product with no added sugar and more traditional ingredients, Costco’s jar stands out. The ingredient list is short, and the bright acidity of the high-quality tomatoes really comes through.

There’s also a difference in price

What might really attract more customers to Walmart’s marinara is the price difference between the two sauces. Although the exact cost may vary slightly depending on location, Costco sells its marinara in a three-pack of 32-ounce jars for about $15.65, which breaks down to roughly 16 cents per ounce.

In contrast, a single 24-ounce jar of Walmart’s organic marinara costs $2.36, or about 10 cents per ounce. The numbers may not look far apart, but the price difference gets bigger the more marinara you’re buying — and this is a household staple for many home cooks, especially those with families.

Costco offers another private label marinara worth trying

If you like the sound of Costco’s tomato sauce, there’s a common point of confusion among many shoppers that you might want to be aware of: Costco sells two different organic marinara sauces under the Kirkland label.

The jar most customers find in U.S. stores is made with vine-ripened California tomatoes and extra-virgin olive oil. Occasionally, you might come across a similar organic marinara from Kirkland Signature, labeled “from Tuscany” on the front of the jar. This sauce is imported from Italy, uses Tuscany-grown tomatoes, and contains Tuscan extra virgin olive oil.

Many of the rave social media reviews for Costco’s marinara center on the Tuscan import, which bears a “Product of Italy” label and the prestige of European sourcing. While the California jar is sometimes overshadowed by the mystique of its Italian counterpart, it stands on its own merits: a short ingredient list, no added sugar, and fresh flavor.

Is one definitively better?

Value depends on what a shopper is looking for. Costco’s jar is the better investment for home cooks who want a sauce that tastes like something homemade. (It would also likely be the better option for making pizza, a dish where simple, pure tomato flavor works best.)

However, it’s impossible to ignore the benefits of Walmart’s marinara, which may be preferable for many households. To start, price is the bottom line for many home cooks, and Walmart wins when it comes to cost. If you have kids, they might prefer the sweeter flavor profile of this marinara — yes, there’s added sugar, but when you’re trying to get a picky child to devour their dinner, sometimes you have to make compromises.

There’s no right or wrong answer to which sauce is definitively better, but there might be one that’s decidedly better for you. And now you can easily decide exactly which option to spend your money on.