I wrote last year about finding a low-salt pre-made tomato sauce for the days when I don’t have any of my home-made version frozen and ready to use or don’t have the time to make some from scratch. I’ve bought Muir Glen and also found some house brand salt-free sauce at my local Jewel. Recently, though, I saw another choice at Trader Joe’s, its private label marinara sauce with no salt added.
The taste was a bit peppery to me when I first tried it. Like many ingredient offerings that go low-salt, the makers here may have thought pepper was a good substitute. I generally just want to taste the tomatoes though. The pepper taste was still there after cooking. If you’re a pepper fan, you should enjoy it. For me it was just ok.
I used it to make my low-fat, low-salt version of chicken marinara, adding some salt-free chopped tomatoes to stretch the jar of sauce a bit so it would coat six chicken breasts. At 35 mgs of sodium a half cup, the TJ’s version has slightly more salt than the Muir Glen alternative.
Home-made is still the best, but if you need some tomato sauce quickly, either of these is an option.
John
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