We Tried 7 Popular Alfredo Sauces and Lived to Share the Best

Alfredo sauce is a surprisingly tough sauce to get right. It doesn’t enjoy the same popularity as marinara or mac and cheese. It’s similar but not the same as buttered noodles, and it also sometimes tastes like cacio e pepe, yet also different. True Alfredo is made of butter, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

The problem is, that despite relatively simple ingredients, not all Alfredo sauces are created equal. The flavor can vary widely. We tried seven classic Alfredo sauces that you’ll find on your grocery store shelves, and most are from your favorite pasta sauce brands. We cooked up a pot of spaghetti and mixed in various sauces to see which were good enough to sway us away from our preference for tomato-based sauce and turn future pasta nights into Alfredo nights.

Prices and availability are subject to change.

$3 from Trader Joe’s

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Trader Joe’s rarely gets it wrong, and their Alfredo sauce is just another example of a product they got right. Out of all the sauces we tried, this was the only one we could imagine being served as an Alfredo dish in a restaurant — we found it that good. The texture upon pouring it out of the bottle was thick and almost chunky, and definitively cheese-like. While some may not like the heavier texture, it mixed in well with the spaghetti, coating the noodles thoroughly. It had a pleasingly cheese-heavy taste, which we found to be masked by spices in some of the other sauces.

$3 from Target

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The texture of Bertolli was on the looser, runnier side, making it quite different from our winning Alfredo sauce. Nonetheless, it was one of the better-tasting options thanks to a cheesy flavor rather than a heavily seasoned flavor like some of the others. There was a hint of peppercorn aftertaste, but not so much that it took away from the cheese, which should be the main attraction in an Alfredo sauce as far as we’re concerned.

$8 from Walmart

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This sauce had a slightly orange color, which threw us for a loop at first. But at first taste, we immediately liked the buttery flavor of the Carbone. The parmesan notes were strong without being overwhelming. But one thing lacking was that distinctive peppery spice that some Alfredo sauces go heavier on, which was a plus for our taste buds. For those who prefer their sauce to be more pungent and less cream-oriented, this probably wouldn't be your first pick.

$4 from Walgreen’s

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The first thing that stands out about Classico is the consistency. It’s not too chunky, not too runny, and has that thickness of a delicious tomato-based pasta sauce. However, the flavor was not a favorite. Despite having one of the better textures, the taste was just … heavy. A little too creamy, with a little too much reliance on spices to mask the cream flavor. It was the kind of heaviness where you take a few bites, and then declare yourself done before you end up with serious gastro issues.

$4 from Walmart

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While the smoothness of the sauce was commendable, the combination of flavors in Prego Homestyle Alfredo may turn some eaters off. The sauce was giving a sour onion taste, but not like the sour cream and onion that’s so good on chips. Though it’s garlic that’s doing the heavy lifting in this sauce, the taste was too pungent. Even worse is that the sauce has a surprising aftertaste. It’s fine until it sits in your mouth for a minute, leaving an unpleasant flavor lingering on your tongue.

$6 from Target

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It’s probably a polarizing opinion for Rao's to be toward the bottom of the list, given how swoon-worthy the red sauces are. But the Alfredo just didn’t cut the mustard (or cheese?) for us. First, the color was orange-tinted, which again, felt suspect. Shouldn’t Alfredo be white? Is there cheddar in here instead of parmesan? Whatever it was, the flavor was just a little too tangy and bold. Maybe it’s personal preference, but we want our Alfredo sauce to be heavy on the cheese, not on the spice.

$2 from Target

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One bite … and then we wanted to spit it out. But why was Ragu so bad? The jar says “flavored with other natural flavor,” but whatever that flavor is, it stands out — just not in a way that makes you want to eat more of something. It tasted artificial. The notes of garlic weren’t palatable. We found it to have a sour, almost bitter, after taste that we just couldn’t stomach.