In most scenarios, you can use marinara sauce and ketchup interchangeably. However, ketchup will be slightly lighter and finer than marinara sauce, which is thicker and more complex. Tomato sauce may be too thick for a pizza, while marinara may be too thin for dishes such as eggplant, Parmesan and chicken parmesan. The pizza sauce also has an intense tomato flavor, so it will also serve as a good substitute for marinara.
This valuable post details everything you'll need to know about thickening spaghetti sauce. Or check out this post if you run out of tomato paste and this one to focus specifically on thickening the marinara. Because the two sauces look similar (and can sometimes even taste similar), we often use the names marinara and tomato interchangeably. However, the two sauces are not the same.
According to Taste of Home, marinara sauce cooks much faster than tomato sauce (often less than an hour) and has a less complex flavor profile that usually consists simply of tomatoes, garlic and oregano. Tomato sauce, on the other hand, requires hours of slow cooking and is made with more abundant ingredients, often including a creamy base of roux, meat, and other vegetables and various herbs. As a result, ketchup tends to be much thicker and more robust than its marinated counterpart. Tomato sauce, tomato puree, tomato paste, ketchup, canned tomatoes, tomato passata, fresh tomatoes, Alfredo sauce, pesto, tomato juice, pizza sauce, pasta sauce, carrot and beetroot marinara are some of the best substitutes for tomato-based and tomato-free marinara sauce.
Tomato ketchup is a great substitute for marinara sauce for two reasons: you should keep it in the fridge and it's highly customizable. However, because it contains added sugar and vinegar, be prepared for your ketchup substitute to marinate to be more acidic than a regular marinara sauce. Tomato puree has a more neutral flavor, which means you can make it taste however you want. At first glance, tomato puree looks quite thick and dense, but you can make its consistency thinner by adding water or tomato juice.
To make the tomato puree look as similar as possible to marinara sauce, you can put it on the stove and add a teaspoon of olive oil. Also, add the exclusive marinara herb, basil, and season things with garlic and salt. Very similar to tomato puree and often confused with it, tomato paste is very different. While tomato puree is juicier because tomatoes are cooked for a shorter period of time, tomatoes in tomato paste are cooked for a longer time and are ultimately reduced to a concentrate-like substance.
Nothing more than freshly blended and cooked tomatoes, ketchup is a great substitute for marinara sauce. It has maintained the natural freshness, sweetness and acidity of tomatoes intertwined with a fine and creamy consistency. Tomato sauce usually contains onions, chili or other peppers seasoned with salt and oregano. This is an excellent substitute for marinara sauce for two reasons: the consistency is more or less the same, ketchup is slightly thicker, and the use of ketchup is the same as that of marinara.
So, wherever you want to use the marinara sauce, feel free to use the ketchup. You'll love this marinara sauce substitute because it's really simple. Like ketchup, canned marinara tomatoes replace blended and simmered canned tomatoes. The taste of canned tomato marinara is different from that of tomato sauce, since the canned version is sweeter.
However, the final result will be excellent and doubly great for marinara. Mixed canned tomatoes will produce a much thicker substance than what is needed for a marinara sauce; so add the liquid from the can to the pan over low heat for the right consistency. Don't forget to keep the tomato water in the can after straining the tomatoes, as you'll need this liquid to adjust the thickness of the sauce. Tomato passata is essentially tomato puree without skin or seeds.
The tomato puree is then simmered with the spices of your choice, since the tomato passata does not restrict the seasoning, but rather the preparation. Freshly peeled and blended tomatoes seasoned with garlic, salt and basil, enriched with a little olive paste, are an excellent substitute for marinara sauce. Between a salsa salad and a sauce, fresh tomatoes mixed together will be great as a pasta sauce or marinara sauce to replace something meaty. Although Alfredo sauce is not tomato-based, it is on this list because, in terms of use, there are situations in which it fits the dish as a marinara would.
It goes very well with drums of chicken or chicken breast, mushrooms or pasta. Alfredo sauce is thicker and stickier than marinara sauce, but it's just as creamy and can be spread. You can't substitute Alfredo for marinara everywhere, but when you can, don't hesitate to do it; the results are excellent. Tomato soup is a lot like marinara sauce, but it's certainly sweeter than marinara.
Marinara sauce also preserves the freshness of the tomato, which is not as represented in tomato soup, especially if you prepare it with soup powder instead of fresh tomatoes. Other healthy variants include tomato juice (homemade, not store-bought), tomato puree and mixed fresh tomatoes. You could say that marinara sauce is simpler than ketchup, since it combines fewer flavors. Tomato sauce contains onions and peppers and is usually thicker than marinara sauce.
Marinara sauce is fresher and tastier, but tomato sauce is richer and silkier. You can use ketchup and marinara sauce for pizza or pasta. However, the marinara may be too thin for eggplants or stuffed zucchini, and the tomato sauce may be too thick for pizza. Often, pizza dough is covered with marinara sauce, and pizza sauce is used after the pizza is ready.
Even so, if there is one drawback to this delicious sauce, it is that it takes more than an hour to prepare it at home and is not something you usually buy to keep in stock. The tomato soup will bring a different flavor to the mixture, but it contains a very similar consistency and can be used in equal proportions. While they are often used in soups and stews, they can also be used as a substitute for marinara sauce. If you want to switch to Marinara, try Pizza Sauce the next time you make pizza at home.
Don't worry if you have leftover marinara sauce, as it's so delicious it won't last more than a day. Pasta sauce is highly customizable; you can customize density, thickness and consistency by adding water and oil. Although oregano and basil seem compatible, they don't usually mix particularly well when combined in a single sauce. Marinara sauce is a very simple tomato-based sauce with minimal ingredients, including tomatoes, onions, garlic and condiments.
Since marinara sauce is so versatile, you can replace it with another tomato-based sauce or tomato-free sauce depending on what you are going to use it for. Dried basil tends to give the sauce an aroma and flavor similar to that of tea, but it will also work if you can't get fresh basil. It will become denser after simmering it, and you can more or less copy the taste of the marinara by adding garlic and basil. .
.
