Make Jarred Marinara Sauce Taste More Homemade With One Fresh Addition

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

After a long day at work, one of the easiest meals is pasta and marinara sauce. But what if you could jazz up that marinara sauce with one simple addition? The spotlight falls on none other than basil, a fragrant herb that can give your weeknight shortcut a fresher, more homemade flavor. While many Mediterranean herbs like thyme, oregano, and rosemary can level up store-bought tomato sauce, adding fresh basil really brings out a familiar flavor with a fresh kick. The herb is already a key part of many classic marinara sauce recipes, making fresh basil a particularly fitting addition.

Why does fresh basil give marinara the gourmet kick you never knew it needed? Its sweet flavor and fresh aroma bring the plum tomatoes to life, making that jarred marinara taste a little more like you made it from scratch. You can also control the texture of your sauce by chopping the leaves into small pieces if you prefer a smoother mouthful, or tearing them into slightly larger pieces for more noticeable bites of basil. The overall difference will be how fresh and fragrant the basil makes the sauce.

When cooking, you want to give the basil leaves a little time to wilt, but not overcook — otherwise, they'll become slimy and lose their green color. The basil gives the tomatoes a lovely, sweet herbal note, while adding delicate flecks that don't make the sauce thick or chunky. 

Knowing when to add basil leaves to your jarred sauce helps you make the most of the fresh addition. When explaining why marinara sauce must be cooked differently from other pasta sauces, Angelo Caruso, chef and owner of Angelo's Ristorante in Stoneham, Massachusetts, told Tasting Table you should add fresh basil at the end of the sauce-making process. By waiting to add your fresh basil, you "keep its aroma bright," he said. The residual heat will soften the delicate leaves, so there's no need to keep simmering the sauce after adding them. You can also reserve a little fresh basil to scatter over the finished pasta. This gives you some basil folded through the sauce and a fresh garnish on top. 

Once you've tried adding fresh basil to your marinara sauce, you might want to try other ways to give your sauce homemade flavor with less effort. A quality jarred marinara sauce like Rao's Homemade Marinara All Purpose Pasta Sauce can taste more homemade with a few simple tips and tricks. First, let the sauce simmer gently until it reduces slightly, concentrating the flavor rather than leaving it bubbling away for hours. If your sauce is too sweet, experiment with small amounts of vinegar to balance the sweetness or squeeze in some tomato paste for a richer, more concentrated tomato kick. Additions like sautéed garlic, red onions, and red pepper flakes are some of the best to give your sauce a homemade feel.