Did you know you should be cautious even about the popular pasta sauces from the grocery store?

When it comes to pasta sauces, we all have our preferences. Be it a tomato red sauce, a herby pesto, or a white sauce, the possibilities seem endless, and there are a lot of choices on the market for you to make yourself.

However, we don’t always have the time and patience to make our own pasta sauce, and it is more convenient to buy one from the grocery store. After all, they are tasty, and they make putting dinner on the table a convenient and easy feat.

The catch is that not all pasta sauces are created equally, and you should be careful which one you go for! Even some of the most innocent-looking ones can end up having a high amount of sodium, fat, and sugar—things that will put your health in jeopardy!

Not all pasta sauces are created equally, and while moderation is always the key, there are a couple of them that you need to make sure you steer clear of, especially if you are careful about your health!

Keep on reading to discover some of the unhealthiest pasta sauces on earth that people absolutely love!

Is your favorite on the list? Let us know in the comments below!

Classico Traditional Basil Pesto

Basil paste seems like a safe choice when it comes to making an easy pasta dish that is flavorful and not going to be that unhealthy. Yet, when it comes to making an Italian dinner spread, you should definitely avoid including the Classico Basil Pesto on the roster.

This is because this sauce is hearty, and half a cup added to your pasta to be tossed together to create the dish will throw you back about 460 calories (which is pretty bad for just sauce), but it also contains about 44 grams of fat and a staggering 1,180 milligrams of salt!

When you realize that that is about half the daily salt recommended by the FDA, it starts to paint the picture as to why you should opt for other jarred pestos.

Yet, the bad list does not stop here, as other ingredients make this type of pasta sauce dubious when it comes to nutritional value. The sauce does contain both olive and soybean oil (hence the high-fat content) but also sulfites.

Those are towards the end of the ingredient list, but they are not to be ignored.

While they can arise naturally from the ingredients, it is unknown here that they have been added as a preservative, and the fact that this chemical is present can end up causing issues for those of us who are sensitive to sulfites.

There are multiple reasons to skip out on this jarred pesto, and we think you should either choose another brand or make your own at home.

After all, all you need is a food processor, basil leaves, pine nuts, garlic, and a generous amount of olive oil, along with some time! Give it a try, and you will never rely on the jarred version again!

Prego Homestyle Alfredo

The idea that an Alfredo sauce can be healthy is pretty funny since we all know that this is one of those indulgent white sauces. The Alfredo sauce is creamy. cheesy and a great pairing for pasta, chicken, and even seafood!

However, we recommend that you skip the normal Prego Homestyle Alfredo since it is a calorific bomb that you add on top of everything else on your plate.

Not as damaging as the pesto earlier, but still something to keep in mind if you are trying to be careful about what you are eating. Half a cup of this sauce has 160 calories, 14 grams of fat, and 780 grams of salt. If you’re counting macros, you know this is already a pretty bad start.

The bad part about this sauce is that it is extremely high in cholesterol, with the count being 60 milligrams per serving of sauce, making this one the most cholesterol-high sauce on our list!

It does not cover the whole healthy amount you can have daily (which is 300 milligrams), but when you add it to the pasta and any other protein sources you may have with it, it can easily put you over.

Not to mention, Prego is not among the best Alfredo sauces out there either, so why risk your health over it?

For a decadent pasta night and an indulging moment, we recommend the likes of Giovanni Rana Alfredo Sauce or the Classico Light Creamy Alfredo (which you can also find on Amazon as an alternative).

Rao’s Homemade Caramelized Onion

Rao’s has quite a following when it comes to their pasta sauces, especially since their marinara is considered to be one of the best in the game.

However, if you have been thinking about getting Rao’s Homemade Caramelized Onion for a higher, more premium experience for dressing your pasta, we would advise you to choose something else since it could be bad for your health.

Checking the label, we found out that half a cup amounts to 120 calories, which is not that bad, but the onions added to the recipe somehow add 20% more than their basic sauce recipe.

It is surprising that the difference between the basic marinara sauce to this one is just due to one, albeit caramelized, vegetable.

The rest of the ingredients in this sauce are not that bad, with only 8 grams of fat and 330 milligrams of salt, which does not make this sauce as bad as the other ones on our list.

However, when you realize that something as harmless as an extra veggie can set you back so many calories, it makes you make a double take if you are on a health kick!

It is better to stick to the basic sauces if you want to make sure you are not making an unhealthy one, but either way. It is better to be in the know when it comes to purchasing your food so as not to accidentally indulge too much or hurt your health!

Ragù Creamy Basil Alfredo Sauce

We have already talked about an Alfredo sauce, but we need to stop again since Ragù has a lot of different variations of this sauce. Depending on what you fancy, you may go for the double cheddar or even roasted garlic parmesan, yet there is one that you are better off skipping.

The Ragù Creamy Basil Alfredo is indeed a decadent, creamy pasta sauce, but you need to be careful when it comes to the cholesterol count. Half a cup of this sauce stands at 180 calories, and when you add in other things, you can easily add up to the calorie intake.

If you are trying to have a balanced meal that is not super high in calories and cholesterol, you may want to leave this type of sauce out of your cabinet.

Fat-wise, it only has 16 grams, which is pretty much for one serving of pasta sauce, and it is also about a quarter of the daily recommended amount. The salt in this serving is also a quarter of the daily recommended amount for a healthy adult, standing at about 660 milligrams.

The issue is not that these numbers make up 1/4 of the daily recommended intake, but rather that without even counting in the pasta, veggies, or even any protein you may want to add, you already have these numbers.

It can only lead to an unbalanced meal.

We recommend that you skip this one and the rest on our list and find some that are better when it comes to nutritional values, especially if you enjoy pasta. This amount of fat and salt can lead to severe heart issues.

Better safe than sorry!

There are a lot of unhealthy foods out there, and while when it comes to premade and repacked foods, we sort of expect them not to be the healthiest out there, there are always foods that surprise us. When we talk about protein, there are a couple of protein sources that dietitians deem to be unhealthy, and most of us don’t even know it! Invest time in your health and read about the unhealthiest proteins here!