Why You Should Think Twice Before Buying Generic Pasta Sauce
Pasta is one of the easiest meals to make, but we've all been in a situation where you needed a quick meal and just didn't have the energy to make your own pasta sauce. There's nothing wrong with convenience food, and you should never feel bad about just grabbing a bottle from the store and leaving. But if you're going to do that, you should probably stick to name brands rather than a store version.
There are plenty of times when you can swap for a generic version and see little to no drop in quality. A lot of staples see basically no difference between name brands and store brands — things like sugar, flour, water, and milk are going to taste the same and be significantly cheaper. The same goes for pretty much any cleaning product. Pasta sauce, however, isn't among these. The reason why is that it's generally made to be as bland as possible, so it's just not going to taste as good.
Cheaper pasta sauces are typically way worse
Honestly, a lot of major name brands are going to have their drawbacks, too. Some major pasta sauce brands tend to be absolutely loaded with sugar, corn syrup, and salt. They also tend to have preservatives that can give them a slightly metallic, chemical taste — not exactly what you want out of your spaghetti and meatballs. But these problems are amplified by generic store brands, which often contain all the preservatives but little of the tomato flavor you'll get from even the least popular name brands.
There are, however, some pretty solid store brands if you know where to look for them. In general, pasta sauce is the sort of product where the more you're paying, the more you get out of it (hence why generics aren't great). This means that more small-batch brands, or well-regarded brands like Newman's Own, tend to both taste better and contain less sugar and salt than some of the big names. Organic brands also tend to use better olive oil and often go a bit heavier on the spices, leading to better overall flavors.
You can also just make your own pasta sauce
You could also, if you have the time and energy, just make your own pasta sauce at home. It may seem daunting, but it's not nearly as challenging as it might appear if you've never tried it before. All it really takes is some time and attention to detail; there's no esoteric or challenging cooking techniques involved. There's nothing wrong with buying store-bought if you just don't have the juice to make your own that day, but it brings some serious benefits if you do.
There are a lot of advantages here. The first and most obvious is you can control everything that goes into the pasta sauce, adding or removing ingredients to your own personal taste. You can control the texture, too, achieving just the right level of chunkiness vs. silkiness. And that's not even getting to the biggest advantage: unless you're buying something artisanal and small batch from a local vendor, it's almost certainly going to taste better.
The most important thing, though, is to avoid the generic. Your dinner will taste much better and you'll be much happier if you do.