Spaghetti sauce is usually thicker, while marinara sauce is usually thinner. If you want to make a hearty and dense dish, choose spaghetti sauce or a thicker marinara. If you want a more delicate dish with liquid sauce, marinara is usually a better option. Marinara sauce is thinner, not thicker, than real spaghetti sauce or a fairly traditional tomato sauce.
However, sauces in jars of both names sold in the United States are likely to have a very similar flavor and consistency. Bolognese pasta and spaghetti bolognese sauce are richer and have a meaty flavor. The flavors of this sauce are well combined and the consistency is thick. On the other hand, marinara sauce offers the complex flavors of the different ingredients.
It's less meaty and you can easily distinguish individual flavors. Therefore, spaghetti sauce is ideal for creating strong flavors in a dish, and marinara is more of an accent. In addition, spaghetti sauce goes well with plain pasta. If you use seafood in your pasta dish, consider using marinara sauce to enhance seafood flavors.
Most spaghetti sauces bought at the supermarket are some form of marinara due to their thinner consistency and chunks of tomato. If you don't have meat but have the other ingredients, making marinara sauce can save you a trip to the store. Another difference with pizza sauce is that it contains balsamic vinegar, a unique vinegar made from grapes, popular in many traditional Italian dishes. Traditional spaghetti sauce is used almost exclusively for pasta, but it can also be used to drown out other dishes due to its thick consistency.
Marinara sauce is liquid and thin, while spaghetti sauce is thicker due to the addition of cream, cheese, meat and vegetables. This means that spaghetti sauce is best used when you want to flavor a dish and marinara is best used when you want to accentuate it. If the tomato sauce in the pasta is thick, it's spaghetti sauce or Americanized marinara. If you don't have meat but have all the other ingredients, making marinara sauce will save you from having to go to the store.
However, if you start a marinara sauce with minced meat (or another type of meat), you'll get something with a different flavor profile that can add richness to your dishes. When cooking, you can usually take a marinara sauce recipe and add meat to get the spaghetti sauce. If you have fresh garden tomatoes on your hands, be sure to freeze the extra ones so that you can then turn them into sauce. It is also more likely to be prepared with both simple canned tomato sauce and tomato paste than with Italian plum tomatoes.
We hope this cooking guide answers all your questions about the difference between marinara, spaghetti, and ketchup. The spaghetti casserole made with your favorite marinara sauce, lean ground beef and shredded mozzarella cheese is a delicious, quick and easy weekday meal. If it's fine, it's most likely a more traditional Italian-style marinara sauce.
