The Store-Bought Alfredo Sauce You Should Always Have On Your Shopping List – Tasting Table

Giovanni Rana Alfredo sauce sets the bar for what a store-bought version should be: flavorful, rich, and outright delicious. Anything less will require that you tweak it with additional ingredients or cooking techniques, and at that point, you might as well make your own from scratch. But if you don’t have the time, a quick scan of the ingredient list should set you in the right direction to land the perfect store-bought Alfredo sauce. A sauce that begins with dairy ingredients is likely to finish strong in both texture and taste. Heavy cream ensures a thick, full-bodied sauce (plus the mixture won’t separate into a gelatinous mess).

Other qualities to look out for in a store-bought sauce include its ability to cling to pasta and whether it has an aftertaste. Unfortunately, you can’t tell a sauce’s “clingability” by merely looking through its jar, but you will eventually see it once the sauce encounters your pasta. As for being saddled with a sauce with a chemical aftertaste, we think it might be among the most unsalvageable types. Even our advice of adding a drizzle of infused oil won’t work here, since such a sauce overbears pasta with a harsh flavor that’ll make you rue the day you bought it.