This recipe will make enough tomato sauce that can be stored for a later use; you can refrigerate it for a week or freeze for up to six months. Premade pesto sauce and this Italian marinara sauce have saved the day many times when we are super hungry and want to eat right away. In 20 minutes a tasty home cooked meal is ready to satisfy everyone’s hunger.
Serve the marinara sauce over your choice of boxed or fresh pasta add Parmigiano Reggiano and voila, it is ready to serve!
This recipe is a vegetarian version, if you are one who prefers their sauce with meat then before cooking the vegetables add the ground beef (approximately 1/3 – 1/2 lb for this much sauce) and season with 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Once the meat is mostly cooked (should have a brown color) add the wine (amount in recipe below) and let it evaporate. At this point you can follow the recipe shown below starting at step 1, the only difference will be that you will omit the wine after adding the garlic because you already added it to the meat. You are probably wondering what type of meat to use, I can tell you from my experience that either ground beef or turkey will work well. Experiment with other meats and pick the one that works best for you; the kitchen is your lab, have fun creating!
- 4 tablespoons of olive oil (not extra virgin)
- 1¼ cups diced onion (yellow or Spanish)
- ¾ cups diced carrots
- ½ cup diced celery
- 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
- ¼ cup dry wine (Vermouth is what I use, any dry wine will work)
- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 2 28 oz. Organic San Marzano Tomatoes (whole)
- 1 cup of water
- 1 1-2 - 2 teaspoons of salt
- 2 tablespoons of Demerara sugar or sugar in the raw
- a hand full basil leaves - tearing with the hands because a steel knife oxidizes the edges
- Pour the oil in a pot and heat at medium heat. Add the onions, carrots and celery and cook until the onions are translucent, approximately 8 minutes
- Add the garlic and cook for one minute, mixing frequently to ovoid burning it
- Add the wine and let it evaporate for approximately 4 minutes. Make sure that the vegetables are still moist and not too dry
- Open the tomatoes cans and with your hands crush them
- Add the tomato paste and the crushed tomatoes to the cooked vegetables
- Fill with water one of the empty tomato cans and use this water to add to the sauce
- Add the salt and sugar
- Let the sauce boil and lower the temperature. Cook for 45 minutes and add the fresh basil
- Continue cooking at low temperature for two hours
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