Best Low Sodium Pasta Sauce We Tasted

The best low sodium pasta sauce is just as savory and comforting as regular ol’ pasta sauce. The caveat: There just isn’t very much low sodium pasta sauce on the market. C’mon, dudes. Where’s the low sodium alfredo sauce? How about a nice low sodium vodka sauce? In the meantime, we’re looking at a lot of low sodium marinara. In this taste test, we did our best with what was available, and what was available were red sauces.

What were we looking for in the low sodium pasta sauces we tried in our in-office taste test? Savory flavor, first and foremost. Some of the sauces we tasted were downright sweet. Unless it’s made with butternut squash or something, pasta sauce shouldn’t be sweet. The best low sodium pasta sauces we tasted managed to be savory without being outright salty. Whether you’re on a low sodium diet or you’re casually trying to cut back on how much salt you consume, here are two low (and lower) sodium pasta sauces that are worthy of your ziti.

Best Lower Sodium

Prego Lower Sodium Traditional (350 mg)

Walmart

If I didn’t know this was lower sodium pasta sauce, I wouldn’t have guessed it was. Granted, that’s probably because this is a lower sodium pasta sauce rather than a low sodium pasta sauce. For context, Prego Traditional has 470 mg of sodium per serving and Prego Lower Sodium Traditional has 350 mg of sodium per serving. That’s a decent reduction (25%), but not enough to make this a “low sodium” food. It’s savory and just a touch sweet. You can taste basil. You can taste tomato. It’s nice, it’s bright, and it has less salt than what you’re currently eating, so we’ll take that as a win.

Credit: Merc / Walmart

Rating:

7/10

Sporks

Best of the Best

The Silver Palate Low Sodium Marinara (140 mg)

Vons

If you can find Silver Palate Low Sodium Marinara at your grocery store, this is the low sodium pasta sauce you should be buying. It’s noticeably lower sodium—in fact, it’s actually low sodium at 140 mg per serving. It makes up for being lower salt in a lot of ways. It’s flavorful without being overly sweet. It’s unctuous without being oily. You can see and taste basil and garlic in the sauce. This is one of those diet-friendly products that I think pretty much anyone would be happy to eat. Nice one, Silver Palate.

Credit: Merc / Vons

Rating:

9/10

Sporks

Other products we tried: Kroger Lower Sodium Pasta Sauce, Francesco Rinaldi No Salt Added

Do you have a favorite low sodium pasta sauce? Let us know in the comments!

About the Author

Howdy! I’m Gwynedd, Sporked’s managing editor. I live in Los Angeles and have access to the best tacos the U.S. has to offer—but I’m a sucker for a crunchy Old El Paso taco night every now and then. I’ve been at Sporked since 2022 and I’m still searching frozen mozzarella sticks that can hold a candle to restaurant sticks. Why you should trust me: I’ve been a journalist for 20 years (yikes), a consumer of food for 40-plus years, and I’m truly hard pressed to think of foods I don’t like (or that I can’t tolerate at the very least). Oh and one time I cooked my way through Guy Fieri’s cookbook and wrote about the journey through Flavortown. What I buy every week: Trader Joe’s Original Savory Thins. Fat free plain yogurt (usually Fage or Nancy’s). Honeycrisp apples. Sweet cream coffee creamer for my at-home Americanos. A frozen cauliflower crust pizza and some jarred mushrooms to top it with. Old El Paso Stand ‘N Stuff taco shells and Gardein Ground Be’f, even though I think “be’f” is a nightmarish contraction. Favorite ranking: Stouffer’s frozen dinners. I don’t own a microwave (I get my cancers the old fashioned way!), so I love taste testing things that I don’t really buy to eat at home. Least favorite ranking: Soy sauce. Don’t get me wrong, I love soy sauce—but consuming that much sodium in one sitting is probably illegal in some countries. Our frozen enchilada taste test was a close second; the smell of microwaved corn tortillas still haunts me.