Don’t even think about using commercial crushed tomatoes in this recipe. It simply won’t work for the following reasons:

First, canned whole and crushed tomatoes have completely different ratios of pulp to juice. If you don’t believe me, look at the nutrition labels on each. The key value is the “total carbohydrate” which indicates the tomato (as opposed to water) content per serving. Here are the total carbohydrate values for ¼ cup of different brands of whole and crushed tomatoes:

Now, these differences may seem piddling, but remember that we’re using entire cans of whole tomatoes, not ¼ cup. When you multiply these values by the number of servings per can, the differences begin to add up. (For purposes of this comparison, 28-ounce cans were used. The differences for 35-ounce cans, which are used in the marinara sauce, would be even more dramatic. And you can triple the drama, because the recipe calls for 3 35-ounce cans.)

Comparing total carbohydrate content for whole vs. crushed tomatoes, there’s a 33% difference for Brand 1 and a 42% difference for brand 2. (The same percentages hold for 35-ounce cans.) So, if you use canned crushed tomatoes, your sauce will be too thick. The balance of flavors will also be off because you’ll have too much tomato in relation to the other ingredients. This is definitely a case in which more is less (and vice versa).

Finally, compared to hand-crushed, commercially crushed tomatoes have a more homogeneous consistency—not an asset in my view. Bottom line: If you want a complex and interesting sauce, you’ll have to get your hands dirty!