How Saucy Do You Get?

More pasta or more sauce? That is the question.

While renowned Italian chef Mario Batali announces pasta is king in his Serious Eats’ segment Mario Unclogged: How to Sauce Pasta, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman decides piling on the sauce is now the way to go.

Batali claims that the sauce should be treated as a condiment to pasta, and should not interfere with the pasta itself. “What you want to eat when you eat a bowl of pasta is pasta,” he says defending Italy’s way of serving pasta and criticizing the American way as “overdressed.”

On the contrary, Bittman’s recent health finds have spurred him to treat the sauce as the main event and the pasta as, well, an afterthought. He claims that the dangers of eating pasta are just as bad as eating a piece of white bread, or biscotti.

But, while many people stand on both sides of this issue, the debate can really go nowhere if you don’t consider what type of pasta sauce you’re using. There are countless varieties of homemade as well as purchasable sauces out there, ranging quite widely in nutritional value. The following is a basic guide to the...