The Best Store Bought Pizza Sauce (Insert Drum Roll)…. Classico!

I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post. This costs you absolutely no extra money (of course), it simply allows me to maintain the lifestyle my cats are accustomed to!

We eat a lot of pizza in our family. A LOT LOT LOT of pizza. We prefer different types of crust – some of us go gluten free, some like a thin crust, and some say the thicker the better. We also have our own favorite toppings (green olives, black olives, pepperoni, Canadian ham, bacon, banana peppers, onion, ground beef, Italian sausage…).

A few even put their own unique spin on eating pizza by drizzling a little Ranch dressing on the crust.

There’s one solid thing we can all agree on, though, and that’s the answer to the question, “What’s the best store bought pizza sauce?” The answer is unanimous: “Classico!”

I should point out, before I go any further with the review, that this is not at all a sponsored post, endorsed review, or anything of the kind. I wasn’t even sent samples to review. Whenever this is the case with my posts/reviews, I’ll always say so right off the bat.

This is simply a case of me being so excited about a WAY better than average product and wanting to let everyone know.

I actually planned for this to be a “Top 3 Pizza Sauces” review. I bought every brand of pizza sauce I could find. I went to a wide variety of different stores, making sure I could find every conceivable brand and even store-brand.

Along the way, I bought a brand I’d actually never tried before – Classico. One Saturday when my husband was grilling a few pizzas on the grill, I fixed one with the brand I’d automatically bought for years (and years and years). I fixed the other pizza with Classico.

As I was spreading the sauces over the crusts, I noticed a couple of HUGE differences right away.

1. The Classico sauce had herbs and tomatoes that you could actually see.
2. My normal brand didn’t. It was a uniform color without any noticeable herbs, let alone tomatoes.
3. When I opened the jar of Classico sauce, the aroma made my knees weak. It smelled like the sauce you’d expect in a pizzeria.
4. My knees never even knew when I opened up the other jar.

Classico is perfectly thick, staying in place like a good sauce should.  Quite frankly, it’s just perfect in every way.

As my much ballyhooed pizza sauce taste test continued (even if I was the only one hooing the bally or ballying the hoo), something became painfully clear – none of the rest could even begin to compare to Classico’s.  True story: I couldn’t even come up with a runner-up.

Doing a “Top 3” post suddenly seemed unfair to Classico because it’d be implying that the other two were in its league and, unless there’s an awesome brand I haven’t tried yet, there are no other sauces in Classico’s league or even on its planet.

While we’re at it, I just have to throw this out there. If your pizza sauce is actually sold in a squeezable bottle, you definitely aren’t doing things the Classico way.

For the grilled pizza – pictured above, my husband (inspired by Papa John’s Cheeseburger Pizza) used Classico Pizza Sauce…. of course, of course… and topped it with browned ground beef, onions, pickles, mozzarella cheese, and cheddar cheese.  Oddly enough, the pickles were actually delicious on the pizza – it was one of the best pizzas he’s ever made and he has made some great ones!