Quick Answer
Costco sells Rao's Homemade Marinara in a 2-jar pack — each jar is 24 oz — at consistently the best price you'll find retail, usually $13-15 for the pair. It's made with San Marzano-style tomatoes, olive oil, fresh onions, and no added sugar, which is what separates it from most jarred sauces. Use it as a direct pasta sauce, pizza sauce, shakshuka base, or braising liquid. The best recipes to make with it are baked ziti, chicken parmesan, shakshuka, and meatball subs.
Rao's Homemade Marinara has become a cult favorite among home cooks for a simple reason: it tastes like a sauce you made yourself. The short ingredient list — San Marzano-style tomatoes, olive oil, fresh onions, garlic, basil — means there's nothing in the way of pure tomato flavor, and the absence of added sugar makes it noticeably less sweet and more complex than the supermarket competition. Costco is where you want to buy it. The 2-pack brings the per-jar price down significantly compared to grocery stores, where a single 24-oz jar regularly runs $10-12. At Costco, you're paying roughly the equivalent of $6-8 per jar. Since Rao's is a pantry staple rather than a specialty ingredient, buying two jars at a time makes complete sense — you'll use them. This guide covers why Rao's is worth the premium, how to use it in ways beyond pasta, tips for getting the most out of each jar, and the best Costco-friendly recipes to build around it.
Why Rao's Marinara Is Worth the Price
The difference between Rao's and a standard jarred marinara comes down to two things: ingredients and the absence of filler. Most grocery store pasta sauces include added sugar (often listed as high-fructose corn syrup or cane sugar), citric acid, and various stabilizers that extend shelf life but dull flavor. Rao's uses whole, recognizable ingredients and relies on the natural acidity and sweetness of good tomatoes instead. The result is a sauce with more depth, better balance, and a texture that coats pasta rather than sitting on top of it. At a typical grocery store, a single 24-oz jar costs $10-12; the Costco 2-pack brings that down to $6-8 per jar, which makes it price-competitive with mid-range conventional sauces. For the quality gap, that's one of the best deals in the store.
How to Use Rao's Beyond Pasta
Rao's versatility is underused by most people who buy it. As a pizza sauce, it's exceptional — use it straight from the jar with no modifications; the flavor concentration is perfect for a thin layer under cheese. As a shakshuka base, warm a jar in a wide skillet with sautéed peppers and garlic, crack eggs directly into the sauce, cover and cook until the whites are just set, and you have a complete meal in 20 minutes. Rao's also works as a braising liquid for chicken thighs, Italian sausage, or meatballs: brown the protein first, then submerge it in the sauce and simmer low and slow for 30-45 minutes. The tomato flavor intensifies and the fat from the protein enriches the sauce. It's one of the easiest ways to make a dinner that tastes like it took hours.
Tips for Cooking with Rao's
The most important rule: don't over-dilute it. Rao's is already a finished, balanced sauce — adding pasta water is fine to loosen things up, but adding too much water or stock washes out the flavor. When using it for pasta, reserve about 1/4 cup of starchy pasta water before draining, add a ladle of sauce to the drained pasta, then add a splash of pasta water to bring it together. For baked dishes like ziti or lasagna, Rao's holds up well to oven heat and doesn't break down the way thinner sauces can. If you have an opened jar you won't finish within a week, freeze it in a zip-top bag or ice cube tray — it freezes perfectly for up to 3 months and thaws quickly in a saucepan.
The Best Rao's Marinara Recipes from Costco
Baked ziti is arguably the highest-leverage recipe for a jar of Rao's: cook the pasta until just shy of al dente, combine it with sauce, ricotta, and shredded mozzarella, bake covered at 375°F for 25 minutes, then uncovered for 10 more until the top is bubbly and browned. Chicken parmesan is the other classic — pound chicken breasts thin, bread and pan-fry them, top with Rao's and mozzarella, and broil until the cheese is golden. For shakshuka, the entire dish comes together in under 30 minutes in a single skillet with no special technique required. Meatball subs are a great use of the second jar: simmer store-bought or homemade meatballs in Rao's for 30 minutes, pile onto hoagie rolls with provolone, and broil. All of these recipes are forgiving, crowd-pleasing, and showcase the sauce rather than hiding it.
Recipes to Try
Baked Ziti with Rao's Marinara from Costco
Baked Ziti with Rao's Marinara from Costco
Baked ziti is one of those dishes that's almost impossible to mess up when you start with a great sauce. Rao's Homemade Marinara is the best jarred sauce you can buy, and Costco sells it at the best price. This recipe layers ziti, ricotta, mozzarella, and Rao's for a baked pasta that tastes like it came from a neighborhood Italian restaurant. It feeds eight, freezes beautifully, and tastes better reheated the next day.
Chicken Parmesan with Rao's Marinara (Costco Ingredients)
Chicken Parmesan with Rao's Marinara (Costco Ingredients)
Chicken Parmesan is one of the most satisfying Italian-American dishes, and the quality of the marinara makes a dramatic difference. Rao's Homemade from Costco eliminates the need for hours of sauce prep — its slow-cooked depth tastes like something your nonna made, not something that came from a jar. Pair it with crispy, properly breaded chicken and the result is genuinely restaurant-quality.
Shakshuka with Rao's Marinara from Costco
Shakshuka with Rao's Marinara from Costco
Shakshuka is one of the most satisfying one-pan meals in existence — eggs poached directly in a spiced tomato sauce, scooped up with crusty bread. Starting with Rao's Homemade Marinara cuts the preparation time dramatically because the tomato base is already deeply flavored and slow-cooked. Add spices, onion, and garlic, crack in the eggs, and dinner or brunch is ready in 20 minutes.
Costco Meatball Marinara Subs
Costco Meatball Marinara Subs
A great meatball sub requires two things: good meatballs and great sauce. Costco's frozen cooked Italian meatballs are surprisingly good — beef and pork, nicely seasoned, and they simmer beautifully in Rao's marinara without any additional work. Toast the roll, pile them on, add provolone, and broil for two minutes. That's the whole recipe.