Not Aldi, Not Costco: The Store-Bought Pizza Sauce We Hated Comes From This Grocery Store Brand

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

When you're putting together a quick pizza, sometimes store-bought ingredients are the fastest and most convenient way to get there. And we all know that the sauce is one of the most flavorful and important components of any pizza. We recently tried 14 store-bought brands of pizza sauce (yep, 14), and out of all of them, one grocery store brand sank straight to the bottom of the ranking. We probably should have known something was off when we noticed it had an amber-brown color even before we put it in our mouths.

This disappointing product was from Kroger. Kroger Parlor Style Pizza Sauce is somehow strangely sweet, despite having no added sweetener, plus we found it had some off-flavors when compared to its peers. Our tester noted, "It is also bitter and pungent, and leaves behind a sharp, unpleasant taste that lingers." The only thing it has going for it is its price; we spent $1.39 on a 14-ounce jar, but honestly, we'd probably even skip eating pizza that night if this was our only choice.

We're not alone in thinking Kroger's Parlor Style Pizza Sauce isn't great. Kroger's own website shows that (as of this writing) it only has a 3.6 out of 5 star rating, which doesn't bode well for the product. One recent review said, "I did not like this at all. It's very acidic and had a very metallic taste. It was almost like someone took tomato paste, added some water and a few pennies. I would recommend spending an extra buck and getting something better quality." 

Though it does take a tiny bit more work, you could always make your own three-ingredient sauce from scratch, which will net you a much better result. Or simply buy something else from our ranking; our favorite product is from a brand highly regarded for its pasta sauce: Rao's Homemade Classic Pizza Sauce. However, you will end up spending more money on it — we got a 12.3-ounce jar for $6.49. And if worst comes to worst and you already have a jar of the Kroger Parlor Style Pizza Sauce in your pantry, adding a bit of olive oil to doctor it up isn't a bad move because it'll make it more velvety and flavorful — any additional tweaking should do the trick.