The Extra Steps Restaurants Take To Make Pasta Sauce Taste Better

High-quality pasta sauce can taste good on almost anything. Sure, we usually toss it up with a steaming batch of spaghetti, but this savory delight can also add some jazz to dishes ranging from meatball subs to good old-fashioned garlic bread. The only problem? Not everybody has the time or skill to throw together a sauce that can compete with the restaurant down the street.

In fact, more often than not home cooks use pre-made sauces to inject flavor into their Italian fare, with two out of every three U.S. consumers reaching for jarred pasta sauce instead of making their own from scratch. Unfortunately, this can seriously downgrade the overall flavor of your dinner. As food expert George Mahe once wrote for St. Louis Magazine, jarred sauces are full of "taste-altering preservatives and stabilizers." These ingredients are selected to keep jarred fare good while it waits on the shelf, but they also compromise the flavor of what are oftentimes generations-old family recipes.

Next time you're getting ready to make pasta bolognese or cacio e pepe, consider leaving the pre-made fare in the cabinet. Instead, grab some fresh produce and some good seasoning, then taste the difference. Even if the whole cooking process seems like a lot to you, fear not! There are plenty of professional chefs who can provide you with all kinds of helpful tips and tricks to make a pasta dish that tastes like it was made at a real Italian restaurant.

Using good ingredients when you cook is one thing, but knowing when to change things up is something else altogether. Luckily for most restaurants, they hire trained chefs who are skilled enough to understand when a recipe is going wrong — and to know how to fix it. As culinary expert George Mahe told St. Louis Magazine, "In a restaurant, chefs are constantly altering sauces as they tend to change complexions in a restaurant setting." In practice, this means that they are frequently adding new ingredients to the mix. Mahe revealed that some common "last-minute additions" might include, "a little more water, some milk, maybe a jolt of fresh herbs, fresh grated cheese, fresh seafood, etc."

Of course, it's important to note that these culinary professionals don't change their pasta sauces based on what they see, but rather on what they taste. In a Quora response that was later published in Slate, former chef Jonas Mikka Luster revealed that he would frequently sample his cooking to make sure that it was up to par. "Chefs learn very quickly to mentally assemble a flavor profile from tasting ingredients. For example, I taste my pasta water every once in a while. I taste the sauce. I ask someone to fry me up a small piece of something and see if the seasoning worked." All in all, Luster said, this taste-testing process is what helped him know "if we're on the right track."

It's no secret that many restaurants rely on butter to inject a bit of flavor into their dishes. Anthony Bourdain once told Oprah Winfrey that French restaurants use so much of it that diners will walk out having consumed "a stick plus." Meanwhile, one all-American chain, Ruth's Chris Steak House, has long boasted that it melts some butter on its steaks before serving. It would be easy to assume that you should top your finished sauce with a big ol' dollop of it to give it one last dose of flavor. Chefs say: Not so fast.

While many restaurants do use plentiful butter in their dishes, most Italian eateries tend to use more olive oil. This is especially true at the end of the cooking process when the pasta and the sauce are cooking in the same pot. At this point, chefs add a nice drizzling of extra virgin olive oil over their sauces for a process that Italians refer to as mantecare, meaning to mix a sauce until it's rich and creamy.

So why don't they use butter? Well, according to Maialino's Jason Pfifer, the ingredient might have a little too much flavor to make it a good addition to your sauce. Speaking with Epicurious, he explained, "Butter can be so rich and overpowering." He also noted that many chefs can lean on it a little too heavily in their cooking, saying how it can be "a bit of a crutch."

When you are cooking at home, you might not think twice before adding hot peppers to your favorite Mexican dishes. After all, nothing tastes better than a scrumptious tortilla topped with some fresh homemade salsa, and what is a salsa, really, without a bit of bite? However, when it comes to adding a bit of heat to your spaghetti sauce? Well, that might not feel "right." Even so, throwing a little chili into your Italian dishes can be a winning move.

Restaurants oftentimes use chilies to give their pasta sauce a certain "wow" factor. By incorporating elements like the smoky yet salty Calabrian chili paste into their recipes, chefs are able to provide their sauces with a richer, more complex flavor. Sometimes, they also add crushed red pepper flakes, as a milder alternative to the Calabrian classic.

Although you may be unsure exactly how to try this out at home, adding one of these curveball ingredients to your dish is a fairly straightforward process. Either of these spicy elements can be pan-cooked in olive oil and then stirred into a pan of finished sauce. In both cases, you will want to heat up your peppers for long enough that they are able to infuse the oil with their uniquely hot flavors. Just be sure to mix your sauce well after adding it all together — otherwise, your sauce might end up with ultra-spicy pockets randomly distributed throughout.

Sometimes, we need to sit back and enjoy the simple things in life, and restaurants know how to make that happen. While many amateur cooks concern themselves with sourcing the next greatest ingredient, the local eatery down the street is not necessarily grappling with those same things. The reason for this is that Italian food is all about simplicity — something that professional chefs understand. As a result, restaurants don't usually try to get too elaborate with the meals they serve, preferring instead to stick with the basics.

As Don Walker of Formento's Restaurant revealed to Mashed, "Great sauces contain only a few ingredients." He continued to explain how adding too many elements to your pasta sauce can actually backfire. "When you start 'crowding the box' with too much, it can overwhelm the taste buds, and the main flavors get lost in the mix."

Walker is not the only person who feels this way. Chef Nick Pallone suggested that home cooks try putting more focus on their cooking techniques, rather than squeezing too many ingredients into their pans. "Sometimes overlooked and not thought about is the little things," Pallone said. For him, this means trying to use a super hot pan as its own sort of secret ingredient. "The hotter the pan, the more vigorously you will have to work, but the heat will aid in the emulsification of the sauce."

When it comes to pasta sauce, every vegetable has a unique function — but not everybody knows this! Somewhat inevitably, the folks who understand the way that different veggies interact in a sauce tend to cook at a restaurant, rather than exclusively in their own kitchen. This gives these eateries a major leg up when it comes to creating sauces that taste truly great.

In a conversation with Insider, chef Zachary Lanier revealed two of the best vegetables to use in your recipe, sharing, "Red peppers are a classic pairing with red sauce — they become silky and sweet when simmered together. Same goes with shallots." He then went on to discuss which types of produce work best in meat-free dishes, saying, "Mushrooms bring a meaty flavor and texture if you're looking for something vegetarian." Carrots, meanwhile, are reportedly very good for counteracting overly acidic tomatoes, while celery draws praise for its "sharpness."

Interestingly enough though, not all vegetables are said to add this level of magic to your plate. On the contrary, there are a few options that have the potential to ruin your pasta sauce altogether. For instance, using watery veggies like zucchini could leave you with a finished sauce that's just too loose.