Ever since I had a baby and my mission in life became to get more vegetables into her, I have been making my own pasta sauce. This allowed me to sneak in some healthy goodness with no drama! To this day, I make my own sauce. So, when we decided to go low sodium, it was very easy to tweak the recipe, hold the salt, and use no salt added tomatoes (if using packaged) or just use fresh tomatoes. However, there are times when you just need a quick pantry dinner and nothing is more versatile than the pantry staple of a jar of pasta sauce.

To that end, I went hunting for the lowest sodium sauce I could find for this Buy This Not That! post. Here’s what I found: sodium levels are really all over the map. Then I had to consider other criteria as well – added sugar or no, organic or not, and the ingredients list. For the purpose of this post, I decided to focus on the sodium first and then look at the other criteria as a secondary consideration.

The Basic Sauces

The most popular brands available readily in grocery stores all had sodium levels ranging from 350mg to 490mg of sodium per 1/2 cup of sauce. Wow! Even the pricier brands failed to deliver.

The “Healthy” Sauces

Then I looked at the so called “healthy” options: organic, no sugar added and even the lower sodium sauces. While they appear to be healthy, it’s easy to get fooled by the labels. The sodium levels ranged from 220mg to 490mg of sodium per 1/2 cup of sauce. In fact, the lower sodium Prego has 320mg of sodium per 1/2 cup! What?! I have written in the past (Buying Broth) about lower sodium not being the same as low sodium – FDA guidelines allow the use of the lower sodium or reduced sodium label if the product has at least 25% less sodium than the original – but then we know that’s not good enough!

The happy balance here was achieved by Lucini Spicy Tuscan Tomato sauce (220mg per 1/2 cup) while having clean organic ingredients. But we can do better!

The Winners

So here are the better sauces that I found (I am sure there are many more!):

• Trader Giotto’s Organic Marinara Sauce No Salt Added came in at 45mg of sodium per 1/2 cup of sauce. Combined with the fact that this is Organic and at a very reasonable price, I would call this the winner.
• A decent runner up was Victoria Low Sodium Tomato Basil sauce at 120mg of sodium per 1/2 cup. I have to say I loved the fact that the ingredients were clearly mentioned right in the front of the jar!
• Francesco Rinaldi No Salt Added Pasta Sauce also has 40mg of sodium per 1/2 cup sauce but it does have some cheese in it so not dairy free.
• The Vine Organic Simply Marinara has only 35mg of sodium per 1/2 cup while also being organic and has no sugar added. I have not tried it yet but it is a best seller and is going in my next order from Amazon!

All in all, it is absolutely dismal what is being stocked in the grocery stores. Having said that, things are getting better. I am starting to see “lower sodium” labels (which incidentally is nowhere near good enough). More products are showing up online as well that check most of the healthy boxes. So for those days when we just about have enough time to boil the pasta before dinnertime, there is hope!