Review: Are Carbone's Pasta Sauces Worth Buying?

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 our thoughts.

Carbone prides itself on crafting sauces made from fresh ingredients instead of dried or dehydrated herbs and tomato paste. Its sauces are slow-cooked in small batches, simmering for an hour to capture the homemade taste. The Carbone Marinara Sauce was a part of the initial sauce offerings from the brand and, like all of the sauces, includes hand-picked Italian tomatoes grown in mineral-rich, volcanic soils. The soil is similar to the volcanic soils in San Marzano sul Sarno in the Campania region of Italy that help the famed San Marzano tomatoes achieve their delightful sweetness and intense, authentic tomato flavor. Additional ingredients include onions, garlic, olive oil, salt, basil, and oregano. The sauce has 90 calories per half-cup serving with seven grams of fat and five grams of sugar.

My initial reaction to this bright, ruby red sauce was the freshness in the marinara's flavor. That bright, clean tomato flavor carried through from the initial tasting out of the jar and on a bowl of hot pasta. The accompanying ingredients balance the natural tomato sweetness with the proper amount of salt to season the sauce without overwhelming to deliver a fresh tomato-rich palate. The marinara's well-balanced flavor has versatility. It can sauce your next bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, act as the sauce for your pizza, or provide a dip for pan-fried ravioli.

Carbone Marinara Delicato is for you if you have an aversion to garlic and onion. The sauce is similar to the original marinara, beginning with whole Italian tomatoes and tomato puree. Then, instead of adding the allium vegetables, Carbone adds celery and carrots, olive oil, salt, and Italian herbs, including basil and oregano. The sauce has a slightly higher calorie and fat count than the original marinara, with 100 calories per one-half cup serving, 10 grams of fat, five grams of sugar, and one gram of protein. 

As the name indicates, the kosher sauce has a much more delicate flavor. However, I found myself missing the garlic and onions. The sauce was chunkier than the classic option, with a slightly more oily sheen that gave it an underlying oily taste when trying it on its own without pasta. When I added it to the hot cavatappi pasta, the sweetness of the sauce dominated, leading me to want to add black pepper, cheese, or hot chili flakes to balance the overall taste. If allium plants trigger an allergy, the Delicato sauce is a good option. Otherwise, stick to the classic marinara to top your next bowl of penne or linguini.

Carbone Tomato Basil pasta sauce includes the same non-GMO ingredients as its original marinara sauce, with similar calorie, fat, and sodium amounts. However, the tastes could not be further apart. Where the marinara sauce has a clean, fresh tomato and herb flavor, the tomato basil shows the richness that cooking a ragu for a long time brings. I would never guess this sauce simmered for only an hour as it has slow-cooked complexity. 

The differences between the two sauces are evident from the outset, as the color of the tomato basil has a deep caramelized tomato hue compared to the bright red of the marinara. The sauce has a much chunkier texture than some others, which I didn't prefer as the ingredients did not seem uniform or well-emulsified. Upon opening the jar, I noticed a good amount of oil on the top that did not fully come together once thoroughly stirred. 

Tasting the sauce on its own, the herbaceous character of the basil came through, though it was more of a sweet note of cooked basil rather than the peppery, spiciness of fresh, raw basil. The herbal notes meld nicely with the sweetness of stewed tomatoes and aromatics with proper seasoning from the salt. I appreciate the slow-cooked taste of the Tomato Basil sauce as it was different from any of the others I tried, making it a nice addition to the portfolio. However, if a fresher flavor is your preference, skip this option.

Opening the jar of Carbone Roasted Garlic Sauce I was immediately hit with an aromatic garlic scent that would ward off a visit from Dracula. However, tasting the sauce on its own and over a hot bowl of pasta revealed a sweet caramelized garlic taste. The sauce consists of many of the same non-GMO ingredients found in Carbone's other sauces, including whole peeled Italian tomatoes, onions, basil, oregano, salt, and olive oil, with the addition of roasted garlic that has been cooked in olive oil. 

The cooking method gives the sauce a luscious, concentrated, slow-roasted, well-balanced flavor with a hint of sweetness. Though the glistening sheen of the sauce led me to believe that there was likely a high amount of oil in the product, the vegan, gluten-free sauce was smooth and well-emulsified without having an oily taste. For true garlic lovers, try dipping garlic and herb breadsticks in this sauce for an over-the-top garlic experience.

The flavor of a genuine Roman-style spicy penne arrabbiata makes my heart jump. The sauce, meaning angry in Italian, is from Italy's Lazio region and traditionally features a simple ingredient that gives arrabbiata its iconic heat: red pepper flakes. These pepper flakes simmer in olive oil, garlic, and tomatoes to create a fiery sauce that envelopes an al dente pasta for a bold punch of Italian flavor. 

Unfortunately, Carbone Arrabbiata Sauce misses the mark. The ingredients list resembles a classic arrabbiata sauce, with imported Italian tomatoes, garlic, onions, red pepper flakes, olive oil, salt, and herbs. However, in the arrabbiata sauce, more so than in any others, there is an overabundance of oil, making Carbone's sauce a greasy mess. Surprisingly, it provides similar calories, fat, sugar, and sodium as the other sauces. However, no amount of shaking or stirring could bring the ingredients together. Instead, a thick layer of orange oil remained separated on top of the sauce. 

The actual flavor of the sauce was unexpectedly mild when considering the name's translation. There was subtle heat on the back palate, but I had to search for it. It did not deliver the fire expected from an angry sauce. If you are a fan of a traditional peppery arrabbiata with ample heat, I would skip this sauce.

Carbone's Four Cheese sauce includes a mix of parmesan, asiago, romano, and ricotta. The cheese blends with the same whole peeled Italian tomatoes as the other sauces with garlic, heavy cream, and black pepper. Carbone Four Cheese sauce has more calories than the brand's other red sauces, with 110 calories per half-cup serving. Still the added calories come from additional protein in the sauce instead of fat or carbohydrates. The four cheese sauce has four grams of protein compared to only one in the other red sauces, with the same seven grams of fat. 

Tasting the sauce on its own and over pasta revealed an enjoyable cheesy tomato flavor. However, the sauce's texture was not as pleasant. It was very grainy and poorly emulsified, indicating the various cheese varieties were not fully integrated into the sauce. The sauce's appearance showed this as well, lacking the glossy sheen of the other Carbone sauces. Flavorwise, the salt in the sauce was nicely incorporated, providing appropriate seasoning without dominating, which was impressive considering the number of salty cheese varieties included. The sauce didn't set itself apart from other four or five cheese pasta sauces on the market. Add the sauce's expensive price, and this is one to skip from the brand.

Slow-simmering tomatoes, sweet bell peppers, and savory onions to create a luscious sauce ideal for spooning over anything from pasta to steak or sausages to seafood sounds delicious. The natural sweetness of each ingredient becomes amplified during the slow cooking process. And, while the idea of sausage with bell pepper pasta sounds delicious, or using pepper and onion sauce as an option for meatballs instead of marinara, I suggest skipping Carbone's Sweet Pepper and Onion sauce to make it. This one didn't wow me like some of the other options did from start to finish. 

Though the sauce includes ripe red and yellow bell peppers with onion, garlic, olive oil, salt, rosemary, and tomatoes, the dominant flavor is the Italian tomatoes. The roasted sweetness of slow-cooking and caramelizing onions and peppers was lacking in the finished sauce, and there was only a mild hint of a woody, herbal note the addition of the rosemary should add. While the sauce's pepper note was underwhelming, the consistency was pleasantly chunky and well-emulsified, creating unity throughout the sauce and providing a textured mouthfeel.

If you are looking for a simple, healthy red sauce without the fuss, out of the jar, Carbone Classic Vodka Sauce is just that as the brand jars this sauce, which traditionally contains cream and butter, without either. Instead, the producer recommends that the home cook add these ingredients themselves. Carbone includes the recommended amounts of fats on its labels to take the guesswork out. Out of the jar, the vodka sauce has 50 calories per half cup and only 1.5 grams of fat. However, the sodium and sugar amounts are higher than in the other sauces, with six grams of sugar and 750 milligrams of sodium, almost double the sodium in the other sauces. 

The taste straight out of the jar is fresh but relatively neutral, even though garlic, onions, vodka, sea salt, olive oil, and black pepper are included in the sauce, along with Italian tomatoes. While vodka is an essential ingredient in vodka sauce, the alcohol is not detectable. Instead, adding vodka to a tomato sauce helps enhance the flavors of the other ingredients, concentrating the flavors. 

The sauce's magic comes when mixing in the butter and cream, which Carbone recommends is eight ounces of cream, two tablespoons of butter, one pound of pasta and the whole jar of vodka sauce. The resulting pasta is sufficiently saucy, with a balance of acidity from the tomatoes and richness from the cream and butter. Comparing Carbone's classic vodka sauce to the spicy vodka, I would likely pick up a jar of the spicy vodka sauce as it has a bit more complexity and punch of flavor. However, if you like a layer of creaminess in your pasta without the heat hot peppers can bring, this sauce is for you.

Pasta with spicy vodka is a dish that has gone viral after supermodel Gigi Hadid posted about it on Instagram in 2020, and Carbone's $34 spicy rigatoni pasta dish on its New York restaurant menu has garnered dozens of copycat versions across the internet. Thankfully, the restaurant opted to add the spicy vodka sauce from their famous dish to a jar, so all you have to do is add it with butter and cream to your favorite type of pasta for the much more reasonable price of around $10 per jar. You can even get this jar of Carbone sauce delivered with a home delivery service straight to your door. 

If you are a fan of vodka sauce with a kick, this is the sauce you will want to try as it includes the vibrant ingredient to spice up your sauce. The sauce contains Calabrian chili paste as the spicy element, melding with Italian tomatoes, garlic, onions, olive oil, salt, and vodka. The heat of a Calabrian chili is intense, with a medium heat level hitting between 25,000-40,000 heat units on the Scoville scale. The heat is nowhere near as fierce as that of a habanero but quite a bit more than the mild heat of a jalapeno. 

Once you add the sauce with this fiery chili paste to butter and cream, it becomes a full-flavored, well-rounded sauce with spicy, rich, savory complexity with just the right amount of acid from the tomatoes cut through the heavy cream's richness to keep the flavor bright and balanced. Though Carbone suggests how much fat to add to its sauce, the ultimate decision is yours, allowing you to make it as creamy and decadent as you like or keep it light to showcase the intense spiciness of the Calabrian chilis. Either way, this sauce is tasty.

Fans of a mouth-coating, ultra-rich, creamy, buttery sauce will enjoy Carbone's Classic Alfredo. It delivers what is expected from a creamy, cheesy white sauce in its purest form. While the Carbone red sauces are available in a standard 24-ounce or 32-ounce jar, Carbone's alfredo standard size jar is only 15 ounces. 

While it is a smaller jar, you won't need as much sauce for your pasta as it is decadent, layered with romano and parmesan cheese, cream, butter, and egg yolks creating an alfredo with double the fat and calories of its red sauces. Where Carbone's red sauces contain all natural ingredients, its alfredo sauces also include stabilizers like disodium phosphate, corn starch, and xanthan gum. While I prefer an all-natural sauce, the additional ingredients ensure the sauce maintains a thick, creamy consistency. 

As far as the overall flavor, after tasting it straight and mixed with cavatappi pasta, I found it to be thick, unctuous, and balanced. My preference leans towards spicy, peppery flavors, so this is one I would skip in the future. However, the buttery, creamy sauce has all the elements any classic alfredo sauce lover would enjoy.

Many sauce brands jazz up their traditional alfredo sauces with additional ingredients, like pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, or roasted garlic. The additions bring complexity and interest to the taste of the classic sauce. Carbone spices up its jarred alfredo sauce with roasted garlic, enhancing the flavor of the classic. The essential ingredients for the sauce begin the same as in Carbone's alfredo, with garlic contributing less than 2% in the finished sauce. The roasted garlic alfredo also delivers two times the amount of fat and calories of Carbone's red sauces, with 100 calories per quarter-cup serving and nine grams of fat.

The overall garlic taste isn't as much at the forefront as in Carbone's roasted garlic tomato sauce since the sauce's butter, cheese, and cream contribute to the dominant flavors in the alfredo. However, the garlic that does come through, while subtle, brings a rich, slow-roasted flavor. I suggest using it in our crock pot chicken alfredo recipe as it has just the right hint of caramelized garlic taste to enhance the slow-cooked dish.

As a whole, Carbone's pasta sauces are delicious. They bring slow-cooked, homemade flavor. The sauces are suitable for keto lifestyles and are made with non-GMO ingredients. These ingredients include imported tomatoes that showcase the Italian terroir from which they are grown. While the brand is about four times more expensive than many other commercial sauces, like a widely available jar of Prego or Ragu, the robust, small-batch, slow-cooked flavor Carbone delivers across the portfolio makes it one to add to your grocery basket next time you are at the supermarket. There are a few options I would skip, as noted. However, as a whole, Carbone delivers red sauces for classic Italian American dishes with authenticity and creamy, thick alfredo with richness.

To decide if Carbone's $10-a-jar sauces are worth dropping a Hamilton on, I collected an assortment of options available locally in my city or online via Amazon. From there, I conducted a taste test, first by trying each sauce on its own without pasta. Then, I warmed a few spoonfuls of each and added it to hot bowls of cavatappi pasta. In doing this, I was able to evaluate if the flavor had changed, improved, or worsened once pasta was introduced. 

Additionally, I researched the production of each sauce, particularly noting that each uses premium, non-GMO ingredients while also offering options that are gluten-free, kosher, and vegan. As a long-time home cook and certified sommelier who has spent a career reviewing wines, spirits, and foods, I taste-tested and reviewed each, determining if you should add a jar to your shopping cart on your next trip to the grocery store.