On The Last of Us Day, HBO shared the first look of the TV adaptation of the acclaimed video game. It shows Joel and Ellie, played by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, standing in a field looking at a grounded airplane. I’ll admit, the first time I saw the image, I thought it was from the Naughty Dog game — the costumes are perfect.
“When I first saw them on set in full costume, I was like: ‘Hooooooly shit! It’s Joel & Ellie! !’ The @HBO adaptation of @Naughty_Dog’s The Last of Us is full steam ahead!” Naughty Dog co-president and The Last of Us director and writer Neil Druckmann tweeted. “Can’t wait to show you more (from all of our projects!).” The Last of Us does not currently have a premiere date, but every episode will have a Game of Thrones-sized budget, so HBO is clearly hoping for a, well, Game of Thrones-sized hit (casting Oberyn “The Red Viper” Martell and Lyanna Mormont should have been the first clue).
When asked about the differences between the show and the game, Druckmann replied, “In the game, [you have to] train the player about mechanics. You have to have more violence and more spectacle to some degree than you would need on a TV show because you don’t need to train people on how to use a gun. So that’s something that’s been really different, and HBO’s been great in pushing us to move away from hardcore action and focus more on the drama of the character. Some of my favorite episodes so far have deviated greatly from the story, and I can’t wait for people to see them.”
As someone who considers The Last of Us his favorite game ever, I can’t wait to see it.
Can’t let #TheLastofUsDay end without giving you a tiny little peek. @PedroPascal1 and @BellaRamsey are Joel and Ellie, and our journey has been amazing so far.
We’ve all had that moment in the fast food line where we wonder: “What if I mix it up? What if, instead of ordering the same delicious fried thing that I always get, I go the healthy route and give that grilled chicken sandwich a try?” I’m sure you’ve thought that before, right? But I’m also pretty confident that you backed out and went with the tried and true because you didn’t want to take a chance and spend money on something that might end up tasting dry and flavorless when you could just order something greasy, fried, and guaranteed to be delicious.
We get it, it’s a risk. So let us do the leg work for you.
No really, we don’t mind. We’ve spent the past few months ranking fried chicken tenders, French fries, fried chicken nuggets, fried fish — just a metric f*ck ton of fried sh*t. So we could really use the palate cleanser with something grilled. Sadly, we discovered that the grilled chicken sandwich is a bit of an endangered species on a growing number of fast food menus. McDonald’s, Burger King, and Shake Shack have all ditched their grilled chicken sandwiches, despite being beloved by fast foodies looking for a healthier option. But there are a few grilled chickens still out there in the fast food universe, and we’re on a mission to try them all.
Let’s dive in and separate the good stuff from the bone-dry trash!
11. Dairy Queen — Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Dairy Queen
Calories: 390
The Sandwich:
I have a hard time understanding why Dairy Queen sells anything that isn’t soft-serve ice cream or a milkshake. There isn’t a single item from DQ’s food menu that I’ve ever enjoyed. Bad cheeseburgers, lackluster fries, and now this grilled chicken sandwich, which is probably the worst food I’ve ever eaten at Dairy Queen.
On this sandwich we have a remarkably dry piece of under-seasoned grilled chicken, a leaf of green lettuce (and I’m using ‘green’ generously here), a soggy tomato, and mayo on a dry, slightly-toasted bun. There isn’t a single part of this sandwich that works — the chicken is bad, the tomato is of the lowest quality, and the lettuce is wilted and tastes unwashed.
The Bottom Line:
The worst grilled chicken sandwich currently being sold. Avoid at all costs.
Because of the customizable nature of Subway, we considered leaving this one off the list entirely. But it is one of the few grilled chicken sandwiches out there, and Subway is definitely fast food, so there is no reason not to include it. As such, this is going to be more of a review of Subway’s grilled chicken meat than the sandwich it belongs to.
Subway makes this sandwich stock with multigrain bread, veggies of your choice, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and baby spinach. All of those single ingredients are better than the chicken. Grilled chicken is one of Subway’s worst meat options — it’s dry, has a weird texture that breaks off into flakes while you chew through it, and is rubbery, whether you get your sandwich toasted or eat it cold.
It’s not pleasant to chew through. In fact, it’s so bad that you’ll have a better sandwich by actually removing the meat.
The Bottom Line:
Subway’s worst meat option, don’t take a chance on this rubbery weird chicken.
9. Sonic Drive-In — Classic Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Sonic Drive In
Calories: 490
The Sandwich:
Sonic’s Classic Grilled Chicken Sandwich looks almost identical to Dairy Queen’s chicken sandwich. It uses the same combination of lettuce, mayo, and tomato, but the grilled chicken patty is way juicier here and more substantial and the inclusion of a Brioche bun over your typical white bun adds a nice sense of butteriness to this sandwich that keeps it from feeling too dry.
I’m not loving the simple mayo sauce at the top but Sonic at least has a lot more to offer by way of customization — jalapeño slices, pickles, and even bacon are a must to take this to the next level, and you can add them free of charge. Why they aren’t a stock part of the sandwich is puzzling to me.
The Bottom Line:
Not even close to the best sandwich offered at Sonic, but if you’re looking for a low-calorie meal that doesn’t taste terrible, this is your only choice on Sonic’s entire menu. If you’re looking specifically for a grilled chicken sandwich, definitely look elsewhere.
This sandwich comes painfully close to being delicious, but unfortunately, its weakest link is the chicken. That makes it not a great grilled chicken sandwich. Let’s talk about the good stuff — Arby’s bacon is both smokey and crispy. The use of Swiss cheese is inspired. In place of mayo Arby’s goes with honey mustard, which adds a nice dash of complexity to this sandwich.
The toasted bun isn’t great, but it isn’t so dense that it’s a chore to eat (like DQs). Alas, this sandwich has the same sad tomatoes and shredded lettuce here as the other sandwiches, and then we come to the Roast Chicken.
Roast chicken is supposed to be tender and juicy, but this chicken is dry and chewy. It also comes in slices, which is a bad move for a sandwich, as you’ll constantly be messing with this thing trying to keep it together. All that effort and for chicken this lackluster? It’s not worth your time.
The Bottom Line:
Arby’s almost has a good grilled chicken sandwich on their hands, they just need to find a way to improve the chicken.
7. Jack in the Box — Sourdough Grilled Chicken Club
Jack in the Box
Calories: 580
The Sandwich:
I’ve got bad news for you friends. I’m not sure what the cheese on this sandwich is, but it’s not Swiss cheese. Even Jack in the Box won’t call it Swiss (which means they’re not legally allowed to), instead referring to it as “Swiss-style.” Whatever that means.
To my palate, it tastes just like American cheese, and that’s a shame because this sandwich has a few great qualities and with the inclusion of real Swiss it might’ve ranked higher. I don’t love the mayo, but Jack in the Box is one of the few fast food chains that can nail sourdough bread pretty well, giving this sandwich an interesting sour aftertaste that complements the grilled chicken and offers something way less filling than your typical bun.
The chicken itself isn’t great, but it’s far from the worst grilled filet in this ranking. Unfortunately, it’s a little hit or miss, so your sandwich might come out worse than the last time you had it.
The Bottom Line:
Jack in the Box is halfway to having a really good grilled chicken sandwich, they just need a better sauce than mayo and real Swiss. We suggest getting this thing without sauce and adding your own using Jack’s BBQ, Ranch, Honey Mustard, or Frank’s Red Hot.
6. Carl’s Jr./Hardee’s — Charbroiled Chicken Club Sandwich
Carl
Calories: 600
The Sandwich:
If you’re looking for a place that knows how to do grilled chicken, it’s Carl’s Jr. The chicken is juicy, while still sporting a charred grilled outer, and I’ve yet to have a grilled chicken sandwich from Carl’s Jr. that suffers from that rubbery re-heated chicken quality that plagues too many of the sandwiches on this ranking, leading me to believe this is one of the more consistent and reliable choices out there.
The charbroiled breast is topped with two strips of bacon, melted Swiss (again, not real Swiss, as far as I can tell) lettuce, tomato, and mayo on top of a nutty semi-sweet honey wheat bun. All the flavors here are very complimentary and my only major complaint is the use of unimaginative mayo and the low-quality lettuce.
The Bottom Line:
A solid choice. It’s a few key ingredients away from being considered great, but I could easily substitute Carl’s Jr’s fried chicken sandwich for this baby without regretting it in the slightest.
Earlier I said the only thing holding Arby’s sandwich back was its low-quality under-seasoned roast chicken. That’s remedied here by dousing that same grilled chicken in spicy buffalo sauce which supplies a nice kick of heat and keeps things interesting on the palate. Instead of Swiss cheese, this sandwich adds a cheesy parmesan peppercorn ranch which helps to further mask the dry chicken while still giving you a sharp cheesy bite.
This is a considerable improvement over Arby’s regular roast chicken sandwich and the Buffalo sauce isn’t over-used to the point that it defeats the purpose of grabbing grilled over fried. But it also doesn’t exactly taste light and healthy like the non-Buffalo sauced version either. That said, at just 360 calories, this is still one of the healthier and more flavorful options on Arby’s meat-filled menu.
The Bottom Line:
Arby’s roast chicken suffers from being dry and under-seasoned, the Roast Buffalo Chicken sandwich remedies that. If you’re not a fan of Buffalo sauce this sauce isn’t going to make you a convert– so if spice isn’t your thing, skip this one.
There are few sandwiches that are better by dropping bacon, but Carl’s Jr’s Santa Fe Chicken club is in every way an improvement over the Charbroiled Chicken Club thanks to the inclusion of a very flavorful bed of green chili underneath the chicken in place of bacon. This sandwich uses the same sweet honey wheat bun but ditches the mayo for what Carl’s calls “Santa Fe Sauce,” which tastes to me like mayo with paprika, cayenne pepper and curry powder added to it.
The sauce is a major improvement over the mayo, it adds spice and depth, while still supplying the tang that helps to elevate a chicken sandwich when pickles aren’t included. But the real star of the show is the mild green chili, sure it doesn’t supply any heat, but it adds a smokey interest and a mild earthy bite on the backend that makes every bite an absolute joy.
The Bottom Line
Carl’s Jr nails the grilled chicken sandwich by adding something that every other sandwich on this list is missing — mild green chili. It’s an easy way to make a grilled chicken sandwich pop with flavor.
Any of Wendy’s chicken sandwiches can be ordered with a grilled chicken breast in place of the homestyle or spicy breading, but why would you choose anything other than the Grilled Asiago Ranch Chicken Club? It has everything you’d want in a good chicken sandwich: interesting cheese, this one uses, as the name implies, Asiago, which is nutty like Swiss but much sweeter, and pairs nicely with the garlic and onion powder seasoned breast filet. Crispy and smokey bacon (Wendy’s has some of the best) adds a nice crunch to each bite. A tomato that is actually juicy and tomato-flavored rather than watery like the other sandwiches on this ranking and the whole thing is topped with a flavorful ranch sauce.
The ranch sauce feels a bit like overkill, but Wendy’s doesn’t have a lot of other sauce options and we’ll take it over simple boring mayo any day. The flavors all come together really harmoniously here, nothing feels out of place or like it needs to be altered in order to make it more palatable. The only thing chicken sandwich better than the Grilled Asiago Ranch Club at Wendy’s is the spicy fried version of the same sandwich.
The Bottom Line
If you love the fried version of this sandwich, the grilled version still delivers that same great flavor while shaving off nearly 200 calories.
We’ve got to hand it to Chick-fil-A, they just know how to prepare a chicken. This boneless chicken filet is a leap up from our number three choice, the chicken is way juicier and more tender, with a slight lemon tinge to it that tastes remarkably refreshing, and has a charred flavor that actually tastes like it was grilled in the same restaurant you’re eating it in. That shouldn’t be a selling point, but it sadly is!
The filet is surprisingly thick, which helps make this sandwich very filling despite its small size. The chicken sits atop three slices of tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, and is topped with applewood smoked bacon and Colby Jack cheese on a multigrain brioche bun
The cheese options are our favorite, if you’re not down with the sharp and nutty mix that is Colby, you can sub it out for spicy Pepper Jack cheese or American if you’re weird. Chick-fil-A suggests you top this sandwich with their Honey Roasted BBQ sauce and we agree, it’s a great combination with the lemon-marinated flavor of the chicken, but don’t shy away from giving the Polynesian sauce a try either.
The Bottom Line
In a whole another league than everything proceeding it in this list. By actually marinating their chicken before grilling it and giving you a nice selection of cheeses and sauce to top it with, Chick-fil-A’s grilled chicken club is truly a people pleaser that won’t make you miss its fried counterpart. Unlike those grilled nuggets.
This is a pretty substantial chicken sandwich, you could easily split it in half and save the rest for later, or share it with another person, it’s that filling. The Habit Chicken Club features a hand-filleted and marinated chicken breast, and that attention to preparation really pays off, this chicken is juicy, tender, and perfectly seasoned, sitting atop the best green leaf lettuce of any of the chains on this list, juicy thick-cut tomato slices and served on grilled sourdough bread.
You could opt for a grilled ciabatta, which raises the calories by about 100, but I think the Sourdough works perfectly here, it’s buttered on both sides of the bread and slightly sour, adding an interesting extra flavor into the whole sandwich and a bit of toasty crunch. This sandwich comes stock with mayo, but the Habit will give you the option of ordering it with BBQ or Teriyaki sauce in addition to the mayo. I always go for the Teriyaki sauce (and skip the mayo), it adds a hint of ginger and sweetness to the sandwich that pairs so well with the grilled chicken that it’s a wonder other chains haven’t started including it in their sandwiches.
Rounding out the sandwich are a few strips of bacon and something that no other sandwich on this list offers but would instantly make each one worth eating: avocado. Avocado on a grilled chicken sandwich is so damn good, not only does it add more flavor to the experience, it pairs so well with the smokey flavors of bacon and the sweet qualities of the teriyaki sauce, compounding into an experience that is greater than the some of its individual parts.
The Bottom Line
Teriyaki sauce and avocado? This might not be the leanest sandwich on this list, but it’s the healthiest and best tasting by a wide margin.
Your dough game is on point. You can slap and spin your pie in the air in ways that would make a seasoned New York Pizzeria owner green with envy. You’ve got special pans and pizza stones that help get your oven extra hot. Maybe you even own a sweet pizza peel or have a dope backyard wood-fired oven set-up (you big nerd).
So why can’t you make a pizza that rivals your favorite by the slice mom and pop corner joint? Maybe your sauce is off. Are you using marinara with its medley of stewed veggies? That’s not the right vibe. Pizza is street food — a good sauce is simpler than that.
A good pizza sauce isn’t always cooked (it cooks in the oven, with your pie). Rather than being stewed way down, it delivers bright, zesty flavors that cut through the umami-dense, salty flavors of cheese and cured meats. Depending on the style of pizza, it may even have a hint of sweetness.
So who makes the best pizza sauce on grocery store shelves? To find out, we blind taste tested 10 of the most readily available brands.
The Process
For this blind taste test, I used a Boboli pre-made pizza crust, cut it up into 10 individual slices, and had my girlfriend top each with a dollop of sauce and a sprinkling of mozzarella (for the full pizza experience) away from my eyesight. Then she tossed them in the oven (five at a time), and I taste-tested each combo of crust, sauce, and cheese. Just to see if your money would be better spent buying a can of whole peeled tomatoes and making the sauce yourself, I also made my own simple sauce to see how it would patch up.
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For the sake of ease and to ensure you could make the sauce yourself at home with no culinary knowledge whatsoever, I kept the ingredients simple: canned tomatoes, salt, pepper, a glug of olive oil, and a sprinkling of oregano and basil.
Let’s get to tasting!
Taste 1
Dane Rivera
This sauce presented itself with a deep crimson color and a very smooth consistency. Definitely a pureed sauce. But while I was expecting something that tasted heavy and robust, this sauce hit me with a surprisingly bright and zesty flavor.
Unfortunately, that initial burst settled into something very neutral. You can tell that this sauce is relying heavily on cornstarch as a thickener. Coupled with an over-riped tomato smell, this one ends up a little unappetizing overall.
Not a great start.
Taste 2
Dane Rivera
Jesus this sh*t is funky! And not in a good way, this sauce is awful, it’s incredibly sharp and overwhelming, has a weird cheesy flavor, and smells like bad feet. It reminds me of Chuck E Cheese. That’s a shame because visually, this one is beautiful. It has a bright red color with nice chunks of tomato, but you could not pay me to ever eat this sauce again.
Taste 3
Dane Rivera
This one… doesn’t look right. It’s almost brown and sort of looks like BBQ sauce. So far, this tasting has been nothing but bad experiences — so I can’t say I was thrilled to try this one. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that this tastes like actual pizza sauce! It has a thick and pasty consistency to it and tastes exactly like the sort of over-sugared sauce you’d find at a pizza chain like Pizza Hut, Little Caesar’s, or Dominos.
It’s not going to be my favorite, but if you love a sweeter pizza sauce, you can’t go wrong with this one.
Taste 4
Dane Rivera
This is fantastic. A considerable step up from everything I’ve tasted so far, this sauce is close to perfect. It’s very bright cutting nicely through the layer of mozzarella with a nice balance of zest and umami and features chunks of flavor-rich tomato, without being overly thick and pasty like Taste 3.
There is something else lurking in this sauce that I can’t quite pinpoint, a sort of sweet earthiness that adds a lot of complexity to it. Just great.
Taste 5
Dane Rivera
Boring. This one isn’t bad, but it has almost nothing going for it. It’s very neutral and provides little more than a wet mouthfeel. You taste it because you know it’s there, but it doesn’t actually taste good enough to be memorable. I
f you’re looking for a non-distracting sauce, this is your best bet. But at that point, I mean… just don’t use sauce maybe?
Taste 6
Dane Rivera
While I’m pretty sure more than half of the sauces selected here have garlic in their ingredients, none of the sauces so far have relied on that flavor as much as this sauce. It’s very garlic heavy, with a rich tomato flavor that really dominated the mozzarella I sprinkled on top. The consistency was a little too pasty for me, and overall that’s going to hurt this otherwise flavorful sauce.
Taste 7
Dane Rivera
I can already tell based on the consistency and color alone, this is the homemade sauce. It has a bright red color with a very rich flavor with sumptuous umami notes balanced with a lot of natural sweetness. It’s also a little wetter than the other sauces I’ve tasted so far, which is another giveaway. If it had time to settle, the consistency would probably bit a bit thicker and more spreadable.
This is delicious and fresh though, so no complaints.
Taste 8
Dane Rivera
Earlier I said the funky mess that was Taste 2 reminded me of Chuck E. Cheese, but I didn’t mean the way it tasted, I meant the way it smelled. Taste 2 smells like Chuck E. Cheese, which is to say: feet. This sauce, however, tastes like what they actually use on Chuck E. Cheese pizza. It’s very cheap tasting and has an off-putting aftertaste that lingers between bites.
Definitely more distracting than pizza sauce should be.
Taste 9
Dane Rivera
For whatever reason, when I took a bite from this slice all of my cheese slid off. So I guess this sauce is the most slippery? That’s something right? This one has a very intense taste, that might be due to the fact that my cheese fell off but I’m getting a rich natural tomato flavor that a lot of these other sauces lack. It has an off putting sour aftertaste to it that I’m not loving though.
Not the worst, but nowhere near the best.
Taste 10
Dane Rivera
This one is very simple, I’m not getting any herbs or garlic, it’s just bright, a bit zesty, and tomato-forward — with just a pinch of salt and a bit of natural sweetness. This was definitely a nice way to end it, it’s not remarkable but it’s everything a good pizza sauce should be. A bit like Taste 4, but without that extra something that really elevates that sauce and makes it a journey.
I will never forget this sauce. It’s so offensively bad that it is now forever ingrained in my memories. I will never forget its funky taste and toe-jam smell. According to the label, the funk is coming via the inclusion of parmesan cheese. It’s a nice idea, any pizza can be improved by a sprinkling of parmesan, but if you’re making homemade pizza, you’re better of grating it fresh from the block for more flavor and less funk.
Best Type Of Pizza To Use It On:
None, throw this in the trash.
The Bottom Line:
Don’t be fooled by the inclusion of parmesan, it sounds like a good idea but tastes like Chuck E. Cheese smells.
I expected a bit more from Trader Joe’s, this sauce didn’t taste bad, but the smell was overwhelming and cheap. Trader Joe’s also carries a freshly made refrigerated pizza sauce and I wanted that for this ranking, but my local Joe’s was sold out. I’m going to go ahead and suggest you spring for the refrigerated stuff over the jarred just by process of elimination though — because this stuff tastes incredibly cheap.
According to the ingredients list, this sauce is made primarily from water and tomato paste with corn starch as a thickener, sugar, salt, and some basil and garlic powder, none of which you can taste.
Best Application:
Good for a flatbread pizza. You know, the boring, less flavorful version of a pizza.
The Bottom Line:
Not worth the jar it comes in, scan the refrigerated aisle for Joe’s fresh pizza sauce instead.
Prego’s Pizza Sauce claims to be “pizzeria-style” and I’m not sure what that means, but there is nothing noteworthy or interesting about this sauce for it to be designated any sort of “style.” It tastes like the lowest quality ingredients possible were used in the creation of this sauce and looking at the label confirms that. Prego didn’t bother using crushed tomatoes, they just got some tomato puree and cut it with canola oil.
The fact that this is ranking higher than Trader Joe’s is just a testament to just how bad that sauce is — because this is truly some bottom-barrel stuff we are dealing with here.
Best Application:
On a pizza for a kid. One you don’t particularly like. It’s almost like ketchup — all tomato and nothing else.
The Bottom Line:
If you’re about to make a pizza and all you have is Prego Pizza Sauce, you might be better off going no sauce. This isn’t worth opening and eating, you might as well save it forever in the event the world ends and you need sustenance in our post-apocalyptic hell-scape.
Don’t you love a food label that just outright lies to your face. Picture yourself in a crowded grocery store, you’re eyeing the pizza sauce trying to decide if that $4 jar is really better than the $2 jar, because they virtually have the same ingredients. Then you run into Ragu, with its low price and many promises — “makes great pizzas!” “extra flavorful,” “homemade style” — how could you go wrong? Well, you could’ve fallen for Prego’s “Pizzeria style” or Signature Selects inclusion of Parmesan cheese I guess, so it could be worse. But if you end up grabbing Ragu you’re going to be disappointed.
This sauce just doesn’t have anything going on. It’s one note — tomato paste. They don’t even bother using diced tomatoes here, just paste, and they cut it with soybean oil and spices. This doesn’t spread well and it doesn’t taste like much.
Best Application:
On the most mediocre homemade pizza of your life.
The Bottom Line:
If it’s all you have and you don’t feel like going to the store to buy a different brand, it gets the job done.
After jar after jar of bad to mediocre sauces, this is our first entry that is actually worth your money. It’s cheap, simple, and packed with rich tomato and garlic flavor. The consistency is very thick so a little will go a long way. Classico makes its sauce with a blend of purée and soybean oil, so it’s not the most high quality sauce, but the focus on flavor makes up for it.
Best Application:
Good for any type of pizza but I’d use it on a more sauce-focused pie, like a deep dish.
The Bottom Line:
It’s not going to blow any minds, but it won’t leave you wanting too badly. It gets the job done and doesn’t feel like a waste.
I had high hopes for this sauce but it didn’t quite deliver at the level I was hoping for. Mezzetta uses real San Marzano tomatoes — which are the gold standard for making a pizza sauce — with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, spices, fresh garlic, black pepper, and fresh basil. It’s almost ingredient-for-ingredient what I used on the homemade sauce but it still misses the mark to some degree.
For the price and with the ingredients used this should taste better than it does but that sour aftertaste is the only thing that lingers in my memory. It has a better flavor and consistency than Classico, but it isn’t worth its slightly inflated price.
Best Application:
Great on all sorts of pies, but I’d go heavy with the toppings to mask the more off-putting characteristics of this sauce.
The Bottom Line:
Doesn’t deliver on the promise of its well-sourced ingredients. Good but not great.
4. Boboli — Traditional Italian Pizza Sauce (Taste 3)
This was the biggest surprise of the blind taste test and reaffirms why we even bother with blind taste tests in the first place! Boboli’s “Traditional Italian Pizza Sauce” (it isn’t in any way traditional or even Italian) comes packaged with every Boboli pre-made crust, I fully expected it to be the worst of the bunch, and then when I saw the sauce — with its dark BBQ-esque color and powerful smell — I was sure it was going to taste awful. Luckily, it doesn’t.
As I said in the tasting notes, it reminds me a lot of the big national pizza chains — it’s sweet, strong enough to cut through your ingredients but not in a distracting or off-putting way. Looking at the ingredients list is downright depressing: Water, Tomato Paste, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Garlic Powder, Modified Food Starch, Onion Powder, Citric Acid, Spices.
High Fructose Corn Syrup, are you fucking kidding me? In 2021? I’m ashamed this is ranking so high but blind taste tests don’t lie!
Best Application:
A good all-rounder sauce, especially if you’re looking to emulate those big national pizza chains.
The Bottom Line:
Punches way above its weight. If you don’t want to go through the trouble of making your own dough, grab a Boboli crust and you’ve got two packets of perfectly serviceable sauce. That’s killing two birds with one stone.
Very natural, bright, and zesty. Whole Foods branded stuff doesn’t generally rank highly in our blind rankings, but this is a great pizza sauce. Looking at the ingredients label is a little head-scratching — this sauce contains organic onion, onion powder, organic garlic powder, organic oregano, and basil, none of which I can really taste. Maybe my palate was exhausted after bearing the brunt of trying nine other very intense sauces. What I did taste I liked. It doesn’t blow me away, but it’s so good I’d even consider this on something it’s not intended for, like a homemade chicken parmesan.
Best Application
Great on any homemade pizza you’ll ever make. Throw some fresh herbs to the top of your pie to make up for what this sauce says it has but doesn’t deliver on.
The Bottom Line:
You can’t go wrong with this sauce, it may not use whole plum tomatoes from the San Marzano region, but it’s good, and that’s all that matters.
2. Homemade Pizza Sauce (Taste 7)
Dane Rivera
Average Retail Price $1-$4
The Sauce
For this recipe, I used a single can of peeled whole tomatoes by SMT, which just for clarification are not actual San Marzano tomatoes. They are what are called “San Marzano style” tomatoes (these are from California), sometimes your local grocery store won’t have actual San Marzanos as an option. San Marzano-style is perfectly serviceable.
I emptied out the contents of the can into a big bowl, sprinkled some salt in there, gave it a glug of olive oil, threw in some dry basil and oregano, a crack of pepper, and got to crushing with my hands. For the best consistency, you should absolutely crush this with your hands and avoid using a blender. In about ten minutes I had a sauce that almost trumped every other sauce I purchased from a market. Had I used fresh basil and real San Marzanos this would’ve taken the top spot no contest.
Best Application
On any type of pizza. If your can of tomatoes yields more sauce than you need, use the remains as the base for a more complex sauce like marinara.
The Bottom Line
Trust us, make your own sauce. It’s easier than most people think it is and it gives you ultimate bragging rights when you can say you made the dough and the sauce with your own two hands.
Not everyone has the time or the will to make their own sauce, we get that. So if you want the best of the best with the lowest amount of effort, you’ve got to get a jar of Rao’s. I’m genuinely surprised at just how good this sauce is. If you told me you made it the morning you’re serving it, I’d believe it. It’s packed with a robust, nuanced flavor that is so good I’d even recommend it as a pasta sauce. Chunks of tomato can be seen in every spoonful of sauce, but it’s still easily spreadable. Of all the slices, this is the only one I ate fully, because I couldn’t get enough of the sauce. I took that as a strong sign that this was the best.
Rao’s is made with Italian whole peeled tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, olive oil, the usual suspects of spices (onions, salt, garlic, basil), and carrots, which is added that sweet earthy flavor I could taste on the backend. That extra ingredient really makes all the difference.
Best Application:
Use it on any pizza, as a substitute for marinara (seriously), or anything that calls for a tomato-based sauce.
The Bottom Line:
This is the best-jarred pizza sauce your money will buy. Perfect for anyone who doesn’t want to squeeze some San Marzanos by hand.
Donald J. Trump hasn’t been president for almost ten months now, and it’ll be a good while before he could even possibly be re-elected. That hasn’t stopped him from holding what is almost certainly his favorite activity: rallies, in which he rants and rambles for 90 minutes or so to adoring fans who thrill to his petty grievances. But at his latest hoedown on Saturday night, he may have pissed off the wrong people: Republicans.
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein, Trump descended upon Perry, Georgia, ostensibly to pitch a trio of loyalists he prefers to the Republicans in charge. But as his style, he spent most of the time on the attack. He lambasted some of his favorite arch-nemeses in Georgia’s Republican party: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and, of course, Governor Brian Kemp. But he may have gone too far, even for the party over which he still holds sway.
“Of course, having her I think might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know the truth” — Trump on the relative merits of Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp pic.twitter.com/KrppCdCHAJ
Trump was complaining about how Stacey Abrams didn’t concede her gubernatorial loss in 2018 right away. (Though, unlike some people, she did eventually.) Being Trump, he couldn’t help but slip in a ancillary dig at another enemy.
“Of course, having her I think might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told the crowd. Usually a Trump crowd will cheer for anything, but the reaction was much more mixed. There were some boos, some gasps, but no sustained applause. He later returned to the subject. “Stacey, would you like to take his place?” he said, with a nod to Kemp. “It’s OK with me.”
According to Bluestein, this made Republican officials hopping mad. Without naming names, he claimed he was being bombarded with texts effectively saying Trump was torpedoing his own party. They told him things like, “What a s*it show,” “We have reached a new low,” and “I am just so mad — beyond words.”
The texts I’m getting from Republican officials: “What a shit show.” “We have reached a new low.” “I am just so mad — beyond words.” Then there’s this from a former GOP legislator: #gapolhttps://t.co/QwLPAiuVkj
Bluestein also mentioned that a top official affiliated with Raffensperger said, “Democrats will win 2022 general in a landslide if a Trump endorsed candidate makes it through the primary.”
Mind you, this is just Georgia, whose Republicans have been standing up to Trump since the 2020 election, refusing to do his bidding, even after he all but made them household names amongst his hopped-up base. But it could signal an ever-growing gap in the party, which has either stuck by Trump’s side or, in more cases, simply stayed silent as he unleashed his wrath.
Meanwhile at the same rally, Trump said something even more dastardly: He talked about the months-long audit of Arizona’s ballots, which was conducted by Trump loyalists and which not only restated that Biden won the state, but that Biden won even more votes than previously thought. And he openly lied by claiming he’d won. The crowd, of course, ate it up.
After a thriller in Seattle that saw the Mercury take care of the Storm to reach the WNBA semifinals, the Chicago Sky went on the road to visit the 3-seed Minnesota Lynx.
Minnesota led by one after the first quarter, but it was all Chicago the rest of the way. Led by Courtney Vandersloot’s 19-5-5 performance, the Sky steadily pulled away from the Lynx to leave little doubt as to the outcome down the stretch.
On the other side, Aerial Powers led all scorers with 24 points, while Kayla McBride added 19 and Sylvia Fowles had 17, as that trio did their best to keep Minnesota in the game.
However, the rest of the Lynx roster beyond those three could only cobble together 16 points, and the more balanced attack from the Sky was able to wear them down. Chicago had five in double-figures — Vandersloot with 19, 16 from Kahleah Cooper, 15 from Azura Stevens, 14 from Diamond DeShields, and 11 from Allie Quigley. That kind of offensive balance is going to be critical in a five-game set with the Connecticut Sun coming up in the semifinals, as they draw the WNBA’s top seed for a shot at the Finals — with the other semi now being set as Phoenix vs. Las Vegas.
Coldplay has had quite an eventful weekend. The band just shared their new single, “My Universe” featuring BTS, which will appear on their upcoming album, Music Of The Spheres. They also made an appearance at the Global Citizen Festival, where they played tracks like “My Universe” and “Fix You,” the hit song from their 2005 album X&Y. For the latter performance, Coldplay invited Billie Eilish and Finneas on stage to perform with them.
This comes after Coldplay shared a documentary that gave viewers an exclusive look at how their BTS collaboration came to life. The 12-minute short captures the first in-person meeting between the artists, showing BTS praising Coldplay, calling them the “king of stadium tours,” a “role model” and a “great influence.”
As for Billie and Finneas, the former was recently included on Time magazine’s list of 100 most influential people. Megan Thee Stallion wrote about the singer for the issue and called her a “rare spirit who speaks from her heart with no pretenses” and a “woman who stands up for herself and advocates for women everywhere.” Finneas, on the other hand, is a few weeks removed from his most recent single, “The 90s.”
You can watch the performance in the video above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
A new report from Yahoo! News alleges some shocking claims about how the U.S. government under former Donald J. Trump handled WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The journalist and activist was not well liked over his habit of making public oft-damning documents. And in 2017, two years before his arrest, and after a particularly egregious leak, both the CIA and high-up Trump officials allegedly plotted ways to off him — claims Trump himself has denied.
According to the report, the CIA toyed with ways to kidnap Assange, who spent over six years holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after being granted asylum. What prompted them to take things next level? WikiLeaks’ publication of sensitive CIA tools, known as “Vault 7,” which was called “the largest data loss in CIA history.”
Some talked of kidnapping. Others went further:
Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”
That didn’t happen. But they had other methods, including, as per Yahoo!, “extensive spying on WikiLeaks associates, sowing discord among the group’s members, and stealing their electronic devices.
Among those out for blood was former CIA director Mike Pompeo, who was among those “seeing red” over the Vault 7 leaks. But Trump claims he was never on board.
“It’s totally false, it never happened,” Trump told Yahoo! News. “In fact, I think he’s been treated very badly.”
Assange had sought asylum at the Ecuador embassy after an international arrest warrant was put out for him over claims of sexual misconduct. He wound up spending nearly seven years there before being arrested in April 2019. He currently resides in a London prison as courts decide whether to extradite him over his role in the Chelsea Manning affair.
Ghostface Killah’s last album came in 2019 with Ghostface Killahs, a 14-track effort with features from Method Man, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, and more. Now,the Wu-Tang rapper is ready to release his fourteenth album. He hopped into Reddit’s HipHopHeads forum and revealed who would handle production on his upcoming album, Supreme Clientele 2. “SUPREME CLIENTELE 2 IS EXECUTIVE PRODUCED BY: KANYE WEST, MIKE DEAN & PRODUCERPLUGUNI.COM, RELEASE DATE: FEB 2022,” he wrote in the post.
That means fans won’t have long to wait.
Ghostface has recently been looking backward, as well as forward. During an interview with Vulture, Ghostface spoke about Supreme Clientele and some of his intentions, or lack thereof, behind songs on the album.
“When I was rhyming on ‘Nutmeg’ and ‘One’ on Supreme Clientele, I made a style that I couldn’t even tell what it was,” he said. “I just wanted to use some words that sounded good with each other and everybody’s trying to decipher what I mean when, really, I don’t even know what it means because I had no beat.” He added, “But something said, ‘Make a record. Write a verse real quick just putting words together, whether they mean something or not. Just put them together.’”
The announcement comes months after Ghostface put on a show with Raekwon for a Verzuz battle back in February.
Sidney Powell is not exactly a reliable narrator. The disgraced lawyer, once described as the “Kraken” in Trump’s flailing attempts to overturn the 2020 election, has herself argued that “no reasonable person” would have believed her nonsense Dominion conspiracy theories. So take this with a quarry of salt: In a new interview, Powell seemed to suggest the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was an attempt to buy time so they could stop Joe Biden’s win. Oh, and she had some help.
This new interview by Powell is interesting. It suggests that the purpose of the insurrection was to DELAY the electoral college certification to give Alito time to intervene on this legal challenge. But, Powell says they didn’t anticipate Pelosi reconvening Congress that day. pic.twitter.com/HnmpcOci3Q
As per Raw Story, Powell went on The Stew Peters Show, where she claimed that, while Trump was revving up his base to descend upon the nation’s capital, she and others were filing a “12th Amendment constitutional challenge to the process the Congress was about to use.” They alleged that they wanted to sue then-vice president Mike Pence to follow that amendment, not the Electoral College Act.
Powell also claimed she had some inside help. One was Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who she said was “our circuit justice for that.” Then she implicated Minority Whip Steve Scalise and House Minority Leader Kevin. McCarthy, who she said tried to stall Nancy Pelosi from reconvening Congress. But that didn’t work.
“She got notice when we made our filing,” Powell claimed. “She wanted to file an amicus brief, and then everything broke loose, and she had to speed up reconvening Congress to get the vote going before Justice Alito might have issued an injunction to stop it all, which is what should have happened.”
In other words, Powell and her co-conspirators, she claimed, were hoping to buy time so that Alito could help flip the election Trump’s way. And it all would have worked out had it not been for that meddling Nancy Pelosi. Ron Filipkowski, who shared a clip of the interview on social media, went even further, saying Powell was suggesting “that the purpose of the insurrection was to DELAY the electoral college certification to give [Justice Samuel Alito] time to intervene on this legal challenge. But, Powell says they didn’t anticipate Pelosi reconvening Congress that day.”
Again, Powell is not exactly a reliable source. But it is possible that she said the quiet part loud, as many die hard Trump people tend to do. That’s how some on social media saw it.
So now we have an implication from Sidney Powell that Justice Alito was in on the insurrection? This just keeps getting better!
So this happened. Sidney Powell was being interviewed and she admitted to the fact that 1/6 was planned and stopping the electoral procedure until Judge Alito could rule on it, was foiled by Pelosi reconveneing the process. So now Judge Alito is implicated in the Insurrection
Well, golly. Did Sidney Powell just publicly suggest that Supreme Court Justice Alito would be intervening in the certification of a free and fair election? https://t.co/sOP0HhNWDJ
— RandiVaxxed & Get the F out of my Uterus (@RandiPierce17) September 26, 2021
Powell is one of a number of Trump loyalists who are being sued by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims linking them to a byzantine plot to steal last year’s election. It was also reported last week that Trump insiders knew those claims were bull.
Two legends and future Hall of Famers met for, possibly, the final time on Sunday in Seattle as the Storm played host to the Phoenix Mercury in the second round of the WNBA Playoffs. Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi played pivotal roles in what became an overtime thriller, with Taurasi burying some key buckets in overtime to lift Phoenix to a semifinal series.
The two teams traded leads and big shots in the fourth quarter, headlined by Sue Bird who was sensational for the Storm in the fourth, refusing to let her team bow out whenever Phoenix gave them a punch. Bird had 16 points and five assists on the afternoon, coming alive down the stretch.
On the other side, it was Britney Griner who was a force down the stretch inside, simply dominating anytime the Storm dared to send single coverage her way. Griner finished the game with 23 points and 16 rebounds to lead Phoenix in both categories.
The final minute of the game wasn’t exactly an offensive clinic from either team, with stagnant sets, missed free throws, and questionable isolation play that saw the game get sent to overtime on this Mercedes Russell block of Skylar Diggins-Smith.
In overtime, the Storm went up early on a three and were looking to extend it, but Brianna Turner got a massive block that led to a Taurasi three to tie it up, as she got going when the Mercury needed it the most.
Taurasi would hit a baseline jumper after that to give Phoenix a lead, one they wouldn’t relinquish again as they held on through the foul game at the end for an 85-80 win. They’ll have to wait for the Lynx and Sky game to conclude to know which of the Sun or Aces they’ll play next in a five-game series, but have had it rolling with a balanced offensive attack thus far, as Skylar Diggins-Smith had another 20-point outing (with seven rebounds and six assists), and Brianna Turner added 12 points and 12 rebounds.
For the Storm, it’s possibly the end of an era as Sue Bird will contemplate retirement. She and Taurasi did an emotional on-court interview afterwards reflecting on their battles over the years, followed by a jersey swap between a pair of all-time legends.
We’ll find out later whether this will indeed be it for Bird, but if nothing else she and Taurasi gave us one final incredible showdown after giving the game of basketball so much for two decades.
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!’ The @HBO adaptation of @Naughty_Dog’s The Last of Us is full steam ahead!” Naughty Dog co-president and The Last of Us director and writer Neil Druckmann tweeted. “Can’t wait to show you more (from all of our projects!).” The Last of Us does not currently have a premiere date, but every episode will have a Game of Thrones-sized budget, so HBO is clearly hoping for a, well, Game of Thrones-sized hit (casting Oberyn “The Red Viper” Martell and Lyanna Mormont should have been the first clue).#TLOUDay #TheLastofUs @Naughty_Dog @HBO @PlayStation @Neil_Druckmann pic.twitter.com/X69ZyfrWbR
ESPN2 
Vaxxed & Get the F out of my Uterus
