This Fishy Addition Might Be The Flavor Bomb Your Store-Bought Pasta Sauce Is Missing

Store-bought pasta sauce might not always taste as good as the long-simmered, homemade version, but it does offer the perk of convenience that you won't get from a homemade batch. Thankfully, there are a few secret ingredients you can use to upgrade store-bought tomato sauce to make the most of it, and one of those is the salty, savory addition of anchovies.

Anchovies are small fish, usually sold in tins and known for being extremely salty due to their canning process. Anchovies are usually cured in brine for several months before they're packed in cans and sold. They bring a bright burst of umami flavor to all kinds of dishes and are commonly incorporated into everything from sauces to salads. A little goes a long way, so start with just one anchovy, and finely dice it before adding it to the sauce, which will help it dissolve into the sauce quickly. Depending on how much sauce you're making, you can add more anchovies to taste. You can also use anchovy paste and skip the dicing step.

Some store-bought pasta sauces already taste salty, so you might not need to hit them with a bigger burst of salty flavor. Make sure you taste the sauce prior to adding the fish to determine how much to add, if any. Plus, anchovies don't just work with tomato sauce. You can also add them to other store-bought sauces, such as Alfredo and pesto, along with store-bought salad dressings. Anchovies are a common ingredient in Caesar dressings, after all! And for the best texture, purchase refrigerated anchovies, and keep them cold. This will help you avoid the mushy tinned anchovies that come from making a storage mistake like keeping them at room temperature.

Alfredo sauce's rich, creamy flavor would benefit from the salty anchovies, but to offer even more balance when you do this, add a hint of lemon juice to the sauce, too. That bright, acidic punch will mingle with the fish's richness to strike a perfect flavor combination. If you want to add anchovies to pesto, start with just a bit — pesto is naturally quite salty from the cheese. If you're not heating the pesto, you can also add a little anchovy oil since the fish won't dissolve the way they would in a hot sauce. In fact, that's one of the best ways to use leftover oil from canned anchovies.