I made marinara sauces using 4 celebrity chefs’ recipes, and the best came from Ina Garten

Florence’s marinara-sauce recipe, which I found on the Food Network website, takes only about 30 minutes to make and relies on dried herbs for flavor.

His recipe called for canned crushed tomatoes, one onion, minced garlic, sugar, salt, pepper, dried basil, dried oregano, and a bay leaf.

I already had all of these things in my pantry, which meant I was off to a great start. Plus, this recipe didn’t require much chopping, aside from about three cloves of garlic and one onion.

Once those were chopped, I sautéed the onion and minced garlic in oil for about five minutes, then added the remaining ingredients.

While the tomatoes and spices simmered together, I boiled some pasta. I made sure to occasionally stir my sauce so it wouldn’t stick to the pan.

In about 35 minutes, I had homemade marinara and pasta ready to go.

This marinara was chunkier thanks to the tomato and onion.

I liked the slightly sweet and herby flavors, but if I made this again, I’d follow Guarnaschelli’s lead and stir in some fresh basil at the end.

Though it would increase the cooking time, I would also sauté the onions a little bit longer than five minutes since they were chewier than I wanted.

Still, this pantry-staple marinara is a great option for an impressive weeknight dinner — especially if you haven’t had time to pick up groceries.

I found Guarnaschelli’s sauce recipe on the Food Network website. It’s a recipe the chef got from her mother, cookbook editor and publisher Maria Guarnaschelli.

The ingredients are simple and include whole, peeled canned tomatoes, grated carrots, extra-virgin olive oil, sugar, red-pepper flakes, yellow onions, garlic, basil, and freshly grated Parmesan.

I began by chopping two large onions, slicing the 10 cloves of peeled garlic into thin slices, and peeling and grating three carrots.

I sautéed the onion, garlic, sugar, salt, and red-pepper flakes until the onion was translucent, and then added the grated carrots.

By this point, the caramelized onions and carrots smelled amazing.

I was worried adding the whole, peeled tomatoes would create a weird texture (the other recipes used crushed tomatoes), but they broke down nicely as the sauce simmered.

From there, making the sauce was mostly a game of watching the pot, stirring occasionally throughout 45 minutes. Per Guarnaschelli’s instructions, I poured in a little water whenever the sauce started to look dry.

I finished the sauce with a handful of fresh basil and freshly grated Parm.

The flavor was well-balanced, with a kick from the red-pepper flakes, sweetness from the carrots and sugar, and savoriness from the onions and garlic. The basil also tasted fresh, and it all worked well with the sprinkling of salty Parmesan.

This marinara is definitely worth making again, but next time, I’d mince the garlic instead of thinly slicing it since I didn’t love that texture.

I also found De Laurentiis’ recipe for marinara sauce on the Food Network website. I liked that it incorporates fresh ingredients like onion, garlic, carrot, and celery.

Though I’m not a big fan of celery, I figured it would be delicious when sautéed with the other aromatics. The recipe also required crushed tomatoes, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, black pepper, and a dried bay leaf.

My grocery store didn’t carry any 32-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes, as requested in the recipe, so I picked up a 28-ounce can and supplemented it with extras from another can.

I started by finely chopping all the fresh ingredients, then sautéed the diced onion with my single clove of garlic, minced.

Then I added the finely chopped carrots and celery, along with salt and pepper, and cooked until all the vegetables had softened.

After a 20-minute sautéeing process, I added the canned tomatoes and dried bay leaf.

Once everything was stirred, I let the marinara simmer for an hour to meld the flavors. I made sure to occasionally mix it so nothing would stick to my pot.

Although it was an easy, mostly hands-off recipe, this marinara took me the longest to make.

This marinara was pretty chunky from the diced carrots and celery.

At first, I loved the sauce’s sweet flavor, but there was a strong celery aftertaste. I used only one celery stalk in the entire batch of marinara, so I was disappointed that I tasted this ingredient more than anything else.

Because of the time commitment required to make this marinara and the lackluster end result, I probably wouldn’t make it again. If I did, I’d grate the carrots for a better texture and omit the celery completely.

I was intrigued by Garten’s use of red wine in her marinara-sauce recipe from the Food Network website. I know wine is great for deglazing pots and pans, but I had never used it in marinara before.

Garten’s sauce uses ½ cup of “good red wine,” olive oil, yellow onion, garlic, 28 ounces of crushed tomatoes (or plum in purée), fresh parsley, salt, and pepper.

After chopping my yellow onion and mincing two cloves of garlic, I sautéed them in olive oil for about 10 minutes. Then, I added the red wine to deglaze.

The wine evaporated pretty quickly as I stirred the mixture. 

Once the wine had boiled down, I added the crushed tomatoes, parsley, salt, and pepper, then let the sauce simmer for about 15 minutes.

The marinara seemed to come together in no time.

I loved the flavor of Garten’s sauce because it had the right amount of sweetness from the wine and tomatoes. The red wine also added. pleasant richness and depth.

The fresh parsley helped brighten the sauce and balance out that richness, too.

For how quickly this recipe came together, I was truly impressed by how delicious it was. Plus, it gave me an excuse to open a bottle of wine to sip with dinner.

Of the four recipes, Garten’s was my top pick. In addition to being delicious and flavorful, it was very quick to make.

I didn’t have any notes on ways to improve it, and I will definitely make it again.

Guarnaschelli’s sauce is also a close second because I loved that it calls for grated carrots, not diced ones. They added an earthy sweetness and great texture to the sauce. It was also a pretty easy recipe to follow and was ready in less than an hour.

The next time I plan to make pasta, I’ll probably turn to these two marinara sauce recipes.

Check out the other celebrity-chef recipes we’ve put head-to-head so far.

This story was originally published on August 22, 2022, and most recently updated on November 2, 2026.