According To Instacart, This Pasta Sauce Is America's Favorite

Instacart recently did a deep dive on America's favorite pasta sauces and the company found out which one ends up in the most shopping carts by scanning through sales data. I'll be real — it's not exactly a shocker, because it's good old marinara. Jarred marinara accounted for 20% of all pasta sauce purchased in 2024 followed by Alfredo sauce (17%) with tomato basil coming in third place (16%). Nothing beats a quick weeknight dinner of spaghetti and red, according to statistics. I'm surprised to say that pesto came in sixth place, only showing up in 7% of overall pasta sauce purchases. 

In general, marinara is a hit uniformly across the country, though Southern states show a strong preference for Alfredo. Speaking of states, the top three states that love jarred pasta sauce overall are Iowa (who orders it 49% more than the national average does) followed by Wisconsin (+43%), and Delaware (+36%). It's hard not to wonder if there's a correlation with Tide pen purchases in those states.

Out of all the jarred pasta sauces on the list, one came in dead last — mushroom sauce, which only made up 2% of pasta sauce purchases. The next one up was vodka sauce (3%) followed by meat sauce (5%). I can understand the mushroom thing since I know mushrooms can be a bit of a divisive ingredient for some (our miso mushroom pasta recipe might change your mind). Oddly, I always thought of vodka sauce as a pretty popular choice so I'm actually a bit perplexed at its unpopularity since it's essentially just a tomato and cream sauce. As to the meat sauce's low ranking — I'm guessing more people simply prefer to just add the meat themselves, since jarred pasta sauce is so easy to doctor up on its own. 

In terms of states that just aren't nearly as interested in jarred pasta sauce, California came in at the bottom with 30% less sauce purchases than the national average, followed closely by Idaho (-30%) along with Maine (-28%). But overall, if there's one thing many shoppers can agree on, it's that a jar of marinara sauce really is a universal crowd pleaser when it comes to dressing your noodles.