Except For Those Who Know What It Is Supposed To Be, Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce Satisfies!

The Good: Generally good ingredients, Affordable
The Bad: Not distinctly bacon or cheese flavored, Mediocre on the nutrition front
The Basics: Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce does not taste bad, but it does not taste truly of bacon or any cheese.


Lately, I've been trying some very different pasta sauces and some of them a pretty good. Others are much more mediocre than truly wonderful. Sadly, when I saw the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce on my local grocery store's clearance rack, I was very excited by the prospect. Bacon and cheese are two of my favorite flavors for . . . well, pretty much anything. So, I was drawn eagerly to the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce. But, alas, the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce was hardly stellar.

Basics

Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce is a pasta sauce. It’s a traditional-looking red – tomato-based – sauce that is a little chunkier than some less-expensive pasta sauces. The Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce is commonly found in the traditional 24 oz. glass jar.

Ease Of Preparation

Barilla’s Bacon & Cheese Sauce is a fully-prepared pasta sauce. To use, simply unscrew the vacuum-sealed metal cap, pour sauce into a pan and heat it up. Warmed to bubbling, the full flavor of the sauce is realized. Any unused portion may be refrigerated in the jar, with the cap tightly on!

Taste

The Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce smells fairly powerfully of tomatoes. The slightly acidic and fruity smell completely overcomes any aroma that may have come from either the meat or cheese in the sauce.

In the mouth, the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce is sweet and entirely tomato flavored. In fact, the bacon pieces and any cheese that is in the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce manifest as a texture more than any type of recognizable flavor. The sweet and salty tomato sauce does not taste bad, but it is in no way distinct or remarkable.

The Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce has a fairly sweet aftertaste, which lasts about thirty seconds.

Nutrition

The Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce is properly measured out in ½ cup servings. In each serving, there are, there are 100 calories. To get the full flavor of the sauce, I tended to use about two servings with each cup or cup and a half of pasta I made. So, it’s easy to rack up the calories with this sauce!

Made primarily of Tomato Puree, Sugar, and Uncured Cooked Bacon Crumble, the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce! All of the ingredients in Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce are recognizable and seem pretty healthy. It is unsurprising that the cheese flavor does not actually come out in the flavor given how far down the ingredients list cheese is.

The Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce has 70 calories per serving, 15 from fat, Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce could be much worse on the health front. The 1.5 grams of fat represent 2% of the RDA of fat with one of those grams coming from saturated fat. Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce is cholesterol free and there is a whopping 20% of one’s RDA of Sodium in each serving. With 12 grams of total carbohydrates, only 1 of them in the form of fiber, the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce is not ideal for dieters. The Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce has 2 grams of protein and 10% of the RDA of Vitamin A and 20% of the RDA of Vitamin C. There were no allergy warnings on the label, but because it contains real meat and cheese it is, obviously, not Vegan compliant or Kosher!

Storage/Clean-up

The Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce comes in a 24 oz. glass jar that makes storage easy. Simply refrigerate any unused portion and try to use within a week of originally opening.

As for clean-up, red pasta sauces are notorious for staining fabrics of all kinds. If you get any of the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce on a fabric, try to rinse it immediately with cold water. Consult a fabric guide for specifics on how to get stains from tomato-based products out of your clothes or tablecloths (without ruining them) should the need arise. On non-porous surfaces, Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce easily wipes clean!

Overall

Unfortunately indistinct, the Barilla Bacon & Cheese Sauce is an adequate pasta sauce, but not one that lives up to its promised flavors.

For other food reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Prego Bacon & Provolone Italian Sauce
Williams Smoked Cheddar
BSN Syntha-6 Protein Crisp Chocolate Crunch Bars

4/10

For other food reviews, please check out my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |