Frozen cheese ravioli is the perfect depression meal, as Sporked senior writer Jordan Myrick once pointed out. It’s easy as hell to make, will fill you up in no time, and tastes incredibly comforting. Plus, you get to make it your own by pairing it with the store bought sauce of your choosing, thereby creating an entirely new and elevated experience. But don’t just grab whichever jar of pasta sauce has been collecting dust in your pantry since spring—buy the best sauce for cheese ravioli instead. From an innovative store bought pesto (crazy!) to an alfredo sauce for those days when you need double the cheese, we’ve rounded up the best sauce for ravioli.
- Priano Rosso Pesto
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For our cheese ravs, we’re looking for a sauce that blends big flavor with a wallet-friendly price tag, and leave it to Aldi to master that with their Priano Rosso Pesto. Forget what you know about store bought pesto—this stuff is made with sun dried tomatoes rather than basil as the base, so it’s sweet, savory, salty, and intensely cheesy and nutty. The Sporked team flipped for it when they tried it in a recent taste test. Save a few bucks with this sauce and go all out with the best cheese ravioli you can find.
- Sonoma Gourmet Vodka & Cream
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The Sporked crew praised this vodka sauce for having a “nice, starchy quality,” and while that may sound weird, we think that makes it some of the best sauce for cheese ravioli. This. Stuff. Is. Gonna. Cling. It’s creamy with just a touch of tomatoey acidity, so use this on your cheese ravioli if you want to really lean in to the cheesiness of it all. Sporked managing editor Gwynedd Stuart already told readers to pair this with cheese ravioli, and she’s my boss so I gotta listen to her. She’s not your boss, but in this case, you should listen to her, too.
Read the full ranking of the best vodka sauce
- Trader Joe’s Bolognese Tomato & Beef Pasta Sauce
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There’s something inherently right about a hearty bolognese being poured over a bowl of cheese ravioli. You get creaminess from the cheese and deep savory flavor from the meat. Plus, the mellow black pepper heat in this sauce pairs delightfully with the ground beef and sweet tomatoes and makes it the perfect candidate for your bowl of ravioli. Sporked contributor Danny Palumbo dinged this sauce a bit for its finely minced ground beef, but we think that’ll only help it coat your ravioli.
Read the full ranking of the best jarred meat sauce
- Rao’s Limited Edition Reserve White Truffle Marinara
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Ha! You thought I’d leave Rao’s off of a list of the best sauce for cheese ravioli? You fool! Rao’s Limited Edition Reserve White Truffle Marinara is the best sauce for truffle lovers and anyone looking to add some deep, funky flavor to cheese ravioli. Gwynedd loved that this sauce leaves a pleasant, subtle white truffle flavor on your tongue after every bite. Creamy ricotta with the umami and bite of truffle? Heaven on a plate.
Read the full ranking of the best marinara sauce
- Giovanni Rana Alfredo Sauce
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I’m a sucker for a great alfredo, so I couldn’t help but include one on this list of sauce for cheese ravioli. Sure, the creamy taste and texture might be a little close to that of our cheese filling, but who says we can’t add more of a good thing to the plate? This creamy, salty, and buttery sauce might weigh you down so much that you may need a nap to recover, but it’s well worth the fatigue for all that flavor. Plus, it’s one of the few refrigerated sauces that made it onto our list, so you know it’s as fresh as a store bought alfredo sauce can get.
Read the full ranking of the best alfredo sauce
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!