It's Totally OK to Put Sugar in Your Tomato Sauce

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People love to argue over what makes Italian food “authentic,” but ask 10 different Italians the “best” way to make any one dish, and you’ll get 10 different answers, even if they happen to hail from the same village.

If there’s one thing we learned while conducting research for our cookbook, “Milk Street Backroads Italy,” it’s that Italian cuisine is not a monolith, to say nothing of Italian-American cuisine — a completely different beast. The country is roughly 620 miles long—that’s just 20 miles over the combined length of Oregon and Washington—but the cuisine made near the Alps is startlingly different from what you’ll find in the toe of the boot.

From the definition of pesto to the best way to prep garlic, talking or (heaven forbid) posting about Italian cooking is one of the easiest ways to get people debating. But there is one question that sends the experts of Instagram into a tizzy pronto:

Can I add sugar to my tomato sauce?

Well, can you?

Short answer: Yes. Tomatoes vary in sugar content, depending on when and how they are picked and processed, and sometimes they are too acidic or simply not sweet enough. A pinch or two of sugar can tame the acidity and make lackluster tomatoes taste more tomato-y.

Long answer: It depends on what kind of sauce you’re making. You won’t see it on the ingredient list for our ragù bolognese, but it’s a common addition in Venice, where the combination of sweet and sour has long been part of the region’s cuisine.

“It’s a gentle push and pull credited to the long history of Venetians using vinegar and sugar to preserve seafood,” wrote J.M. Hirsch of his visit with cookbook author Marika Contaldo Seguso. “It’s not a bold—albeit delicious—flavor stroke like Vietnamese caramel shrimp. Rather, it’s a more gentle contrast that lends subtle complexity to the dish. To demonstrate, Seguso offers to teach me scampi alla busara, or prawns poached in tomatoes.”

After flavoring the oil with shell-on shrimp and garlic (and tossing the latter—another move that scandalizes Italian-Americans) the native Venetian added tomatoes, basil, red pepper flakes and a splash of white wine, then simmered it all together until it made a sauce that was “thick and almost jammy, the taste bright and sharp.”

“Then,” writes Hirsch, “Seguso adds a hint of white sugar—maybe 2 teaspoons—just enough to round out the flavor of the tomatoes and underline their sweetness without dulling their tang.”

Can I sweeten my sauce with a carrot?

Carrots are a common addition to tomato sauces. Unlike table sugar, which is flat and one-note, they provide an earthy sweetness with layers of flavor. They bring a lovely, nuanced sweetness in the Original Spaghetti and Meatballs — a dish we would never consider doctoring with sugar.

But they aren’t as effective in quick, fresh recipes like scampi alla busara, which takes half the time. Extracting the carrot’s natural sugars requires a fair amount of simmering and, much like tomatoes, there isn’t a standardized amount of sugar per carrot.

Not only does sugar dissolve almost instantly, but we know how sweet a teaspoon of sugar is, making it a predictable addition.

So go ahead, add a little sugar to overly acidic or just plain lackluster tomato sauce. La polizia will not come for you, I promise.

And if you're looking for more Milk Street, check out our livestream cooking classes with our favorite chefs, home cooks and friends for global recipes, cooking methods and more.

Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.