Chrissy Teigen's New Cravings Pasta Sauces, Ranked

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Chrissy Teigen is a real Jack of all trades. She's a world-famous model, television actor, and food blogger who's a total wiz in the kitchen, so much so that she's written multiple cookbooks. Talk about an eclectic resumé. Recently, she's unveiled the perfect product to complement her indulgent "Cravings" cookbook: a line of pasta sauces.

Pasta is one of the country's favorite weeknight meals. We love comfort food, and it doesn't get much more comforting than soft noodles covered in warm, buttery sauce. But popular pasta sauces that line store shelves are often full of excessive sugar and hard-to-pronounce ingredients. Teigen's Cravings line aims to do better: Not only are these sauces preservative-free, but they promise restaurant-level quality from the comfort of home with bold, unique recipes to shake up your boring, alternating-between-red-and-white-sauce pasta regime.

I got my hands on the four Cravings sauces  — Spicy Miso Alfredo, Creamy Corn & Truffle, Spicy Thai Basil Marinara, and Creamy Tomato Sauce — to decide which is best and which (if any) fall flat. I ranked each sauce based on overall flavor and quality, including whether or not ingredients were balanced, vivid, and true to their titles. So grab your favorite pasta-twirling fork and get ready to carbo-load: Here are the four new Cravings sauces, from worst to first.

Ahh, good ol' marinara. It's a fan favorite around the country for any classic pasta dish, from lasagna to spaghetti and meatballs. But if you tend to craft these classics on the regular, the flavor of marinara gets old quick. This Cravings sauce aims to put a unique, Thai-style twist on the go-to pasta sauce with Thai basil. Thai basil, as opposed to more common sweet basil, has an earthier, spicier kick, which I hoped would liven up this pasta sauce with more complexity than Prego or Ragú are capable of. But this sauce didn't quite live up to its eponymous, nuanced Asian herb.

The Spicy Thai Basil Marinara from Chrissy Teigen's Cravings line is hard to distinguish against average Joe marinara sauces. The Thai basil ups the earthiness just a tad — I had to really search for any earthy undertones. Meanwhile, chili peppers give the sauce just a touch of spice; for a self-proclaimed spicy marinara, I think this sauce could have brought the heat a little more.

The main flavor that comes through in this sauce is straight up, fresh-from-the-garden tomato. Its bright, zesty flavor was clearly high-quality and delicious, but it needed more heat, garlic, and black pepper to take a pasta dish to the next level, or make a delicious dipping sauce for breadsticks. Although its mix of chunky and smooth textures was superb, the flat, overly sweet and tart flavor earned this Cravings sauce the last-place spot in this ranking.

Corn and truffle isn't a combo you see often in store-bought pasta sauce. It's the kind of sauce you might reach for when you're craving some hearty comfort food with a bougie touch. This sauce certainly fulfills the need for something with an elevated flair for your pantry, but it's not without a miss or two along the way.

The texture of the Creamy Corn & Truffle sauce was perfect — it was rich and creamy, with slight hints of chunky corn, but not so much that I felt like I was munching on corn kernels among bites of pasta. It latched onto the noodles well, with a slight stickiness that made the rich (but not too rich, I might add) flavor coat my mouth. Bright corn and a potent punch of truffle was complemented by extra earthiness from plenty of black pepper.

Of all the ways to use truffles, pairing them with corn seems odd at first, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Sweet, bright corn and deeply earthy truffles are soulmates, and they certainly complement each other in this well-executed, nuanced sauce. However, you won't want to toss this sauce over some noodles and call it a day. The sweetness from corn, creaminess from milk and cheese, and intense truffle flavor need a little something else to really drive this sauce home. An addition of rich meat — think prosciutto or bacon — in a pasta dish with this unprecedented sauce is an absolute must to subdue the sweetness and intense truffle taste.

If you've been looking for a real weeknight warrior of a pasta sauce, something familiar and comforting without posing the risk of getting boring, this sauce might be your answered prayer. The Cravings Creamy Tomato Sauce isn't marinara, vodka sauce, or Alfredo, but it somehow feels like a hybrid of all three of these favorites.

Creamy tomato sauces often run the risk of being too much of one thing — either too rich and Alfredo-like or too tangy — but this sauce strikes the perfect balance of tart and decadent. The added cream and cheese tame the too-tart tomatoes (which the Thai basil sauce fell victim to), while the tomatoes ensure the cream won't be too much of a good thing. It's not too heavy and buttery, but it's not nearly as bright and crisp as marinara. Like the aforementioned sauces, its texture is right in between chunky and thin, giving it tons of well-rounded appeal.

Despite plenty of herby, peppery flavor and a slight lick of heat to make it complex, I just had one minor qualm with this sauce, which prevented it from hitting the No. 1 spot: It was too salty. The salt distracted from the creamy texture and garden-fresh, herby flavor enough that I was a bit disappointed. I found that adding a little extra black pepper helped balance out the excessive saltiness, so all hope wasn't lost.

We normally think of fishy, Asian-style soup when we think of miso. But combining miso and noodles unlocks a whole new world of pasta experiences, and Chrissy Teigen's Cravings line might be one of the biggest players in pioneering this outstanding, largely unheard-of combo in a jarred pasta sauce.

Calling this sauce an Alfredo sauce is like calling a Bugatti a Corolla. It's so much more than just some butter and cheese tossed together and strewn over some noodles (no offense, Alfredo sauce). The addition of miso into Alfredo ingredients gives pasta the ultimate umami kick that it's been begging for all its life. Simple, traditional Alfredo ends up feeling flat and overly salty, but this Spicy Miso Alfredo introduces layers upon layers of flavor that might have you ditching plain old white sauce for good.

It's not just cream and savory miso that give this sauce its out-of-this-world flavor. Leeks add aromatic sweetness, chili peppers give it plenty of sneaky heat, and black pepper is the earthy binding agent to bring all the complex flavors together. Initially, after my first bite, I didn't find this sauce all that spicy, but after waiting a few seconds, the warming heat hit me in a way that made the sauce less fiery and more comforting. A jar of this sauce and some pasta is enough for a delicious meal, but it also has the potential to act as a dipping sauce for bread or veggies, a drizzle for rice bowls, or even an umami upgrade that adds nuance to soup.

To set the stage for ranking all of these sauces, I started by cooking up a box of quattrotini — also from the Cravings line — as my pasta base. I prepared each sauce in its own saucepan, heating it until steaming before tossing it with the freshly cooked pasta. I kept things completely unadulterated, avoiding any extra ingredients so I could experience the true flavor of each sauce. Each serving received a generous ladleful, enough to thoroughly coat the pasta, and I made sure to taste every one while it was still piping hot.

I set aside my own flavor preferences in order to rank the sauces as objectively as possible. Rather than favoring sauces that happened to align with my personal tastes, I focused on the overall execution and balance. I considered whether the flavors blended harmoniously into something layered and complex, or if they fell flat or muddled in translation. I also factored in the perceived quality of the ingredients, the nuance of the flavor profile, and how faithfully each sauce delivered on its name.