14 Unhealthy Steak Sauces To Leave At The Grocery Store

A great steak can stand on its own. But a superior steak doesn't get offended by a little sauce. Still, when you're adding your favorite steak sauce to your grocery cart, you might unknowingly be piling on extra amounts of sodium and sugar. Skip the salt bombs and added sweeteners by steering clear of these popular steak sauce brands.

Let's just say there's a reason the average steak sauce goes down as smooth as it does. It's only human to be drawn to the sweet-and-salty. But with the FDA recommending no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day (which, for a visual, is a mere 1 teaspoon of table salt) — and Americans eating three times more than the recommended daily sugar allowance (which is about 9 teaspoons for men and 6 teaspoons for women) — it's easy to smother a steak in heaps of these notorious health busters.

Pitting sauce against sauce to uncover the least favorable options, I took my armchair dietician skills for a spin. I also kept an eye out for abnormally high sodium, atypical ingredients (would you like soybean byproducts or dairy with your filet mignon?), and added sugar, which is less nutritional than the natural sugar content you might see coming from fruit. Jonesing to get saucy with your beef? These are the steak sauce brands you'll want to leave on the shelf.

Maybe it's a faux pas to ask for A1 at a steakhouse, but it's more than just a supposed sign of bad taste to pour it on your T-bone at home. With zero fat, and just 15 calories per thick, luscious, tablespoon-sized serving, it's almost criminal that the company also sneaks corn syrup into the recipe.

Even after ditching the word "steak" from its name as part of a rebrand back in 2014, A1 may still remain the most ubiquitous accompaniment for a Tuesday night t-bone (and, to be honest, it is the rare person who measures out a single tablespoon of the stuff for their evening supper). The added sugar coming from corn syrup is worth noting, since large amounts — or a diet that regularly features corn syrup (comprised of glucose) — can contribute to higher levels of insulin which can then lead to diseases like cancer and diabetes.

Also not the most nutritious is the sodium content for this brand. At 280 milligrams per tablespoon, it's not the worst offender on the list, but those milligrams make a bigger impact when you think about all the other salt you're likely already consuming with your meal.

Peter Luger Steak House may owe its nearly 150-year run to "sticking to the basics," but when it comes to the brand's signature Old Fashioned Sauce, this tried-and-true classic could use a refresh. If dining at the restaurant is reserved for special occasions, pouring this sugary sauce on your sirloin at home should be just as uncommon, too.

Although the blend positively oozes old-school culinary craftsmanship, the added sugar in this rich, cocktail-style sauce reads like an all-star lineup of notorious sweeteners. On the label — just after tomatoes and vinegar — you'll find sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and corn syrup, followed by good old fashioned molasses. While additionally processed blackstrap molasses shows purported health benefits for hair and bone strength, that's not this kind of molasses, which is closer to sugarcane on the sugar production pipeline. It all adds up to 7 grams of sugar per single tablespoon serving.

On the flip side, this brand is fat free, lower sodium at 125 milligrams per tablespoon, and packed with flavor, thanks to grated horseradish roots, tamarind, eschalots (a type of onion), and umami-powered anchovies (the saltier cousin of the sardine). But for anyone with allergies, keep in mind that the "natural flavor" here comes from soy.

Who is Izzy and how is his sauce so delicious? Well, Izzy Rosen was a 50/50 partner behind St. Elmo Steak House in Indianapolis, Indiana, and apparently, he ate his steak sauce like a meal. As one of the few sauces on this list with an allergy warning for milk, soy, and wheat, gluten and lactose sensitive diners aren't the only ones who should watch out for this brand.

The sodium content for this savory stunner hits 300 milligrams per tablespoon serving. With just a few bites of your steak, you could be close to hitting 13% of the recommended daily allowance of sodium for adults (and there's so much meat left to go).

We might expect a brand with an institutional steakhouse presence to feature butter in just about everything (and no one's mad about the brandy and triple sec), but this recipe also includes soy sauce, which is where the wheat enters the picture, as well as another offending sweetener: corn syrup. Is it delicious? Absolutely. Are there more nutritious options out there? You bet.

Hailing from across the pond as the go-to "brown sauce" condiment for fish and chips, HP sauce — which has stood for "Houses of Parliament" since 1903 — features a rich, velvety recipe that goes with just about everything. But, even so, it gets a lot of its succulent flavor from added sugar.

You don't need to book a flight to England to see this bottle on the shelves at your local stateside grocery store. With a quick peek at the label, you'll find roughly 3.5 grams of sugar per tablespoon serving coming from molasses, glucose-fructose syrup (which is similar to high-fructose corn syrup in the U.S.), and sugar. While it's not an alarmingly high sugar content, the sweeteners contributing to it aren't the most natural ingredients (natural sugars from dates, shantay you stay).

While the brand also released a reduced sodium, lower-sugar version of its iconic recipe, the original bottle still appears to be the most widely available for Americans. So keep a keen eye on that nutritional information.

Lawry's Signature Steakhouse Marinade comes in hot with less than 1 gram of sugar per tablespoon serving. How is that even possible? With sugar listed as the sixth ingredient on the back of the bottle, after spices like cumin and chili pepper, the brand appears to be focused on serving up seasoning, not sweetness.

It's a bummer, however, that you'll find salt listed in fourth place, which leads this bottle to feature a higher sodium content than some of the other brands on this list. With 350 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon serving, just a quick drizzle will likely have you chowing down on 15% or more of the recommended daily allowance of the salty stuff.

This brand features a bevy of seasonings like garlic, onion, and red bell pepper, which contribute to lots of flavor that's also light on sugar. The xanthan gum in the recipe is just a thickener, but if you're looking for preservative-free, the included sodium benzoate will probably leave you hungry for something else.

Just like A1 Original, another Kraft Heinz brand to get the "steak-free" steak sauce name reboot is Heinz 57 Sauce (which you still might find labeled as "Heinz 57 Steak Sauce"). Still, the company that's been around since 1911 seems to be cashing in on formulas that use industrial sweeteners — namely, the second ingredient listed in Heinz 57 Sauce: high fructose corn syrup.

With 3 grams of added sugar (and none of that coming from another sweetener source), it looks like high fructose corn syrup is solely responsible for the higher-than-average sugar content in this recipe. But it's not just the sugar that makes this one a dud on arrival.

Along with ingredients you might expect to find in a steak sauce — like tomato purée, malt vinegar, and salt — the nutrition label features a whole host of preservatives keeping this brand shelf-stable into infinity and beyond. Anti-caking modified food starch to mold-preventing potassium sorbate, it's almost a relief to find soybean oil on the list (except it's not, because of the damage vegetable oil can do to your gut). Looking for minimal processing to go with your steak? Pick a different sauce.

There may be no more descriptive name for a condiment, but Bone Suckin' Chophouse Style Steak Sauce gets a lot of its bone sucking flavor from its sugar content. It's a bit of a sad story, considering how healthfully the rest of the ingredient label reads.

Molasses and sugar contribute to the 3 grams of added sugar in this recipe, per single tablespoon serving. While that definitely won't taste like dessert, the percentage of your recommended daily sugar allowance will add up over the course of an entire ribeye.

It's a Debbie Downer scenario on top of a really great list of ingredients. Tomato purée, lemon juice, organic vinegar, dried garlic, and onion work together with natural smoke flavoring to create a big punch with a small batch feel. It's kosher, non-GMO, preservative free, fat free, and totally indulgent. If it only had less sugar, you could almost chug it by the bottle.

Fans hit up Walmart house brands for a discount, but they still deserve to pop open a quality product at those rollback prices. Walmart Great Value Classic Steak Sauce comes in at less than 1 gram of sugar, but loses some oomph when it comes to sodium and syrup.

The sugar content in the recipe comes from corn syrup, which is slightly less processed than its high fructose corn syrup cousin, but not any healthier. If this ingredient sounds familiar, that's because corn syrup appears in an enormous amount of processed foods commonly found on grocery store shelves. Eating a lot of it can lead to weight gain, which can cause the development of heart disease and diabetes. Probably not the DIY steakhouse experience you're looking for.

To top it off, at 270 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon serving, this sauce doesn't exactly go light on the salt. This is one scenario where you might be better served by spending an extra buck or two on a healthier brand.

You might recognize this brand from its Worcestershire sauce, but Lea & Perrins puts out a steak-friendly sauce that's just as full of hearty flavor. Lea & Perrins Bold Steak Sauce offers tongue-snapping tang in just a few drops, but there's also a lot of sugar mixed into this old-school recipe.

A single tablespoon serves up 3 grams of added sugar. According to the nutrition information on the bottle, molasses, sugar, and evaporated cane syrup all contribute to the above average sugar content for this brand.

It's also not an allergy-friendly recipe when it comes to more sensitive diners. Lea & Perrins steak sauce recipe sources Worcestershire sauce concentrate which features anchovies, one of the list of tinned fish that are a no-go for those with fish allergies. For corn sensitivities, beware of the corn starch involved in the mix. It's a classic steak sauce, but one that features loads of ingredients that modern eaters might want to skip.

Hailing from one of Target's three in-store grocery brands, Target Market Pantry Zesty Steak Sauce hits all the right notes on price. But if you're looking for a sauce with just a few ingredients and even fewer health-related red flags, the all-caps declaration "CONTAINS A BIOENGINEERED FOOD INGREDIENT" does absolutely nothing to quell nutrition label anxiety.

Even if you breeze past the U.S. Department of Agriculture warning, you still run into a few obvious nutritional pitfalls. This zippy recipe features higher amounts of both sodium and added sugar, compared to other brands. The 4 grams of sugar (including the 3 grams of added sugar) come from natural fruit juices as well as high fructose corn syrup, which sits at third place on the ingredients list (and probably counts as the bioengineered element). Higher sodium content at 240 milligrams per tablespoon serving, makes this bottle one you can think twice about buying (promise you won't miss the preservatives, either).

Dale's has amassed meat fans for decades with a savory steak sauce that packs bonkers levels of sodium compared to most other brands on the shelf (come on, you knew it was too good to be good for you). From the restaurant-first brand that launched in 1946, Original Dale's Seasoning harkens back to days of old with its abbreviated list of jaw-dropping ingredients (be still, our little 21st century hearts). The bottle is labeled as being "highly concentrated," but dishes up a whopping 1,220 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon serving. For that, you can look to the salt in the soy sauce, plus some monosodium glutamate (MSG). While it has transcended the once damaging mythology around it, MSG — which is a flavor-boosting additive made of glutamic amino acid (an amino that also occurs naturally in humans) — still serves to pump up the salt content.

You'll find zero sugar content listed on the label, but you'll also see sweetener names in the ingredients box. Corn syrup and sugar may not hit FDA required labeling amounts in this case, but they're listed plain as day in this sauce recipe.

If you're looking to a London pub for a healthy and nutritious meat topping, you may want to let go of those dreams. But if you're craving a rich, savory chophouse style sauce, London Pub Steak & Chop Sauce has your number. The problem is, it also has a whole bunch of sweeteners and allergens in it, too.

While it gets props for a well-seasoned recipe that clocks in at 190 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon serving, the 2 grams of added sugar sound a tiny alarm. Upon further inspection, several sources were found in this sugary cache, namely the second ingredient on the list: sugar. Of course, the molasses and high fructose corn syrup aren't doing anyone any favors, either.

People with allergies might also want to take note. This brand utilizes anchovies, several derivatives of soybeans, and wheat. But, hey, there's also a teeny tiny bit of vitamin C (roughly 2% of your daily required amount) so it's not a total loss.

Shemps understood the assignment when it came to crafting its original steak sauce without loads of preservatives. The "all natural" brand boasts hearty, small batch production, with a recipe that's proudly made in the USA (hence the eagle and U.S. flag motif on the label). But even though it's natural, sugar's gonna sugar.

A single tablespoon serving of Shemps Old Fashioned Original Flavor Steak Sauce will land a gut-busting 4 grams of sugar on your plate. Going by the ingredient label, it appears that the sugar content is coming mostly from cane sugar — and possibly orange juice concentrate.

On the flip side, the sodium content is shockingly low for a steak sauce, at 90 milligrams per tablespoon. It's too bad that the malt vinegar, jalapeño peppers, onion, and garlic seasoning couldn't stand on its own without the incorporation of natural (but still sugar) cane sugar.

This brand boasts the apparent industry-wide "super good on everything" sentiment, but offers something the rest of the bottles on this list do not: strictly Georgia-grown Vidalia onions. But a sauce that bills itself as sweet and savory is definitely primed to light things up in the added sweetener department.

A single tablespoon serving of Braswell's Vidalia Onion Steak Sauce dishes up a serious 4 grams of added sugar. That's because this rich, tangy blend incorporates Worcestershire sauce from concentrate (along with the molasses, corn syrup, and sugar used in that original recipe), plus cane sugar as part of the overall mix. It's not an extreme amount of sugar on its own, but it can be tough to track how much you take in over the course of a meal.

The bonus here is the relatively low sodium content at 170 milligrams per tablespoon, plus the welcome addition of nearly every onion-related seasoning under the sun. Love Vidalia onions, other onions, and onion powder? After all that onion, you might be craving the added sugar in Braswell's smooth and savory sauce. Want to skip the grocery store altogether? A basic steak sauce or a creamy béarnaise is a breeze to prepare — and, if you make it yourself, you'll know exactly what ingredients you're pouring on your steak.