Pomodoro Sauce vs. Marinara: Italian Tomato Sauces Explained

Pomodoro sauce is a tomato-based pasta sauce made from fresh tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and fresh basil. In Italian, pomodoro means “golden apple,” because the traditionally cooks made the sauce with tomatoes that were slightly yellow in color, resembling the local apples. Pomodoro sauce has finely diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes to give it a very thick and creamy texture, whereas other sauces, such as bolognese sauce, call for cutting whole tomatoes into larger chunks.

Italian recipes may have variations on the ingredients in the pomodoro sauce, such as including different fresh herbs and spices like dried oregano. Pomodoro sauce can be a meat sauce with the addition of proteins like Italian sausage, anchovies, or ground beef. Pasta pomodoro is a favorite pasta dish known for its smooth and creamy texture and commonly comes topped with parmesan cheese.

Marinara sauce, also known as a red sauce, features tomatoes as the base ingredient alongside complementary ingredients, such as oregano, garlic cloves, fresh basil leaves, olive oil, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, and tomato paste. You can serve marinara sauce as a pasta sauce or add ground beef or meatballs to make spaghetti sauce. Marinara also has high versatility and can work as a dipping sauce for breadsticks.

In Naples, the birthplace of pizza, marinara is also a style of pizza, topped simply with tomato purée, thinly sliced garlic cloves, a pinch of oregano, and a spiral of olive oil. For an incredible pizza sauce, you can take a homemade marinara sauce recipe (using fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes from the grocery store) and simmer on medium heat to reach your desired consistency.

It can be helpful to know the differences between pomodoro sauce and marinara sauce when deciding which one to use as a condiment or for your homemade pizza. Both work well for weeknight meals or comfort foods like homemade pastas. These simple sauce recipes require little prep time and cook time, and they use ingredients you can find at the grocery store, like black pepper, extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and fresh tomatoes.

• Texture: The main difference between Italy’s two reigning tomato sauces—pomodoro and marinara—is the texture. Marinara is a runny, flavorful red sauce that you simmer with herbs for anywhere from thirty minutes to multiple hours. Compared with marinara, pomodoro is hardly a sauce: Seeded, diced tomatoes get cooked with fresh garlic and olive oil into a mixture that just coats pasta.
• Taste: Pomodoro and marinara sauce recipes call for similar ingredients, so their differences in flavor are nuanced and depend on the ingredients you use. Their flavors can also vary based on the tomatoes you use to make these sauces. You can experiment with plum tomatoes or San Marzano tomatoes in different marinara and pomodoro sauce recipes to find the perfect balance for your palate.
• Application: Pomodoro sauce is less runny and more spreadable, making it some home cooks’ preference for pizza sauce. Both marinara and pomodoro sauces work well on homemade pasta dishes like lasagna, spaghetti, gnocchi, ravioli, or chicken parmesan, or on a low-carbohydrate zucchini bake.

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