Why You Should Ditch Store-Bought Pasta Sauce For Olive Garden's Take-Home Tubs

While there are many store-bought pasta sauces worth putting into your shopping cart, many of our favorites have a hefty price tag. And while many store-bought options boast gourmet and all-natural ingredients, they're still mass produced and lack that homemade feel. So, if you'd rather not make pasta sauce yourself but still want a fresh taste, ditch the store-bought pasta sauce and take home a tub of Olive Garden's scratch-made sauces.

According to Olive Garden's website, you can purchase marinara, Alfredo, five-cheese marinara, and meat sauce by the pint from its catering menu. The tomato-based sauces sell for $9.49, while the Alfredo sauce sells for $10.99. The appetizer section on its regular menu features three of these sauces (regular and five-cheese marinara and Alfredo) as smaller dipping sauces available up to a half-pint each with an order of breadsticks, giving you two options to enjoy Olive Garden's beloved sauces at home. You can order online or call the order in. If you happen to be dining in person at Olive Garden, you can always order dipping sauces to-go for the following week's dinners. Not only is the Alfredo sauce made from scratch, but we also got the inside scoop from an Olive Garden chef the sauces in the trio are made in-house by specialized sauce chefs. Consequently, Olive Garden's sauces are better than store-bought and, for that matter, maybe better than what most home cooks can whip up.

We tasted all of Olive Garden's sauces, and Alfredo sauce was certainly a favorite. While its regular marinara may not be our favorite Olive Garden sauce, you can transform it like you'd upgrade any bland marinara sauce. Add ground meat, fresh herbs, and extra spices to take it in a more flavorful direction. Transform Olive Garden's marinara sauce into vodka sauce with the help of vodka, cream, and plenty of parmesan cheese.

To enjoy these sauces, consider chicken Alfredo tortellini, which you can recreate at home with the help of store-bought stuffed pastas. Walmart's Marketside fresh pastas offer tortellini and other cheese and herb stuffed pastas to pair with Olive Garden's Alfredo sauce. Olive Garden's meat sauce would be a great addition to homemade lasagna or as a swap for bolognese to serve over spaghetti or pappardelle. The marinara sauce can streamline your next batch of chicken or eggplant parmesan. While our absolute favorite sauce, the mushroom cream sauce isn't available to order by the pint, you can incorporate that same earthy savoriness into the Alfredo sauce by adding meaty, butter-sautéed mushrooms to serve over your favorite type of pasta.