If you ever went looking for a low sodium jarred marinara sauce at the grocery store and didn't have any luck, you can easily make your own at home. My favorite marinara sauce is from Rao's. It has 330 mg for ½ cup of sauce and that is quite a lot. My recipe has only 26 mg of sodium.
Tips for Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce
To make the sauce more flavorful you can sub in low sodium chicken broth or wine in place of the water that the recipe calls for. There are some comments below about adding wine to the recipe but feel free to do that if you wish. Again adding wine or chicken broth instead of water is optional.
I like to buy the jars of already chopped garlic that are at the grocery store to save time on dicing the garlic myself. You can buy fresh garlic and chop that yourself.
Marinara sauce and spaghetti noodles can be a quick meal to make at home. Add in some ground beef for some protein or if you're a vegetarian or vegan Banza pasta has a pretty decent source of protein in just the noodles.
This spaghetti sauce without the ground beef added to it is 1 smart point per serving.
I like to buy the 96% lean ground beef at Wal-mart to add to this pasta sauce. One 2oz serving of this sauce with the ground beef added is 2 smart points.
How to Low Sodium Marinara Sauce
To print the full recipe please see the recipe card below.
Spray a non-stick pan with cooking spray. Set to medium-low heat.
Cook the onions until they're translucent and add the tomato sauce and tomato paste; then water. Stir in all the spices, and let the sauce simmer on low for 30 minutes. Adding in ground beef is optional.
Serving size: ½ cup.
Other Recipes to Try
25 Slow Cooker Recipes for Dinner
Maple Bacon Corn Bread Muffins
Baked Buffalo Chicken Taquitos
If you’ve tried this Low Sodium Marinara Sauce recipe or any other recipe on the site, let me know in the comment section how it turned out. Snap a picture and upload it to Pinterest.
Low Sodium Spaghetti Sauce
- Yield: 8 1x
Ingredients
- ¼ cup chopped onions
- 15 oz no salt added tomato sauce (canned)
- 8 tablespoons of no salt added tomato past (Hunt's)
- 1 ½ tablespoons sugar
- 3 tsps garlic, diced or minced
- 1 ½ tsps ground oregano
- 2 tbsps leaves basil (dried)
- ⅛ tsp crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 ½ cups of water
Instructions
- Spray a non-stick pan with cooking spray. Set to medium-low heat.
- Cook the onions until they're translucent and add the tomato sauce and tomato paste; then water. Stir in all the spices, and let the sauce simmer on low for 30 minutes. Adding in ground beef is optional.
- Serving size: ½ cup.
Notes
My WW Personal Points: 2 Click here to see in recipe builder (will have to log in)
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ½ cup
- Calories: 35
- Sugar: 5g
- Sodium: 26mg
- Fat: 0g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 8g
- Fiber: 1g
- Protein: 1g
Keywords: low sodium spaghetti sauce
Tom says
Can you please tell me the phosphate and potassium amounts?
Juck Pulver says
Thank you for and easy and straight-to-the-point recipe.
★★★★★
Connor says
Forgot to add: definitely use the sodium free chicken broth instead of water. It is great. I threw in some ground turkey, too. Delish.
★★★★★
Connor says
AMAZING... I made this last night! Yea, it might not be as flavorful as the common alternatives. However, in a unique way, it is so much better than the prego/ragu you get at the store! (which have 2400mg of sodium in the jar!)
I added a whole white onion and some extra pepper flakes. It added a really good spice, while still being balanced with the sweetness of the sauce and sugar. I will be making this all the time. As someone who loves pasta, it is a relief to have found something with just 50ish mg of sodium per batch!
★★★★★
Dennis says
Thank you for this recipe. I love traditional spaghetti, and when I began researching store sauce labels with an eye to sodium reduction, I became rather discouraged. I decided to try this and I like it, but I think it needs a little more flavor for my old taste buds. I think I'll try the point about using wine or low sodium broth in place of water.
★★★★
Shane says
Amazing recipe. I use it whenever I make pasta. However my question is, why 1 can of tomato sauce, then 1 can of tomato paste+1 1/2 cups of water? Why not just 2 cans of tomato sauce? A 6oz can of tomato paste, when combined with 1 1/2 cups of water, becomes the equivalent of a can of tomato sauce.
Bob says
Sorry, please disregard my previous email. I ready the article and it’s 21 mg.
Bob says
Sorry for a stupid question, but under Nutrition it says Sodium 21. Is that 21 mg, or 21% ?
Thanks
Jenna says
Thanks Linda! I still hardly go out to eat and cook at home.
Linda W Flood says
Thanks for the recipe! I also agree with you about restaurant food and sodium levels. I no longer love going out to eat as everything tastes too salty. Cooking more at home. Thanks again!
★★★★★