Updated on April 25th, 2019
Spaghetti is probably the most popular Italian dish. I used to use store-bought spaghetti sauce quite a bit but now that has changed. I started experimenting with different sauce recipes until I found one that was perfect for me. Spaghetti sauce is not very hard to make and itās all about the simmer. The longer you simmer the sauce for, the better it will taste. The sauce should be simmered for a minimum of 1 hour, but I would recommend about 1 Ā½-2 hours. The recipes call for 2 cups of water in the sauce, if you are only simmering for 1 hour, I would only use 1 cup. Serve with parmesan cheese and garlic bread. What could be better? Enjoy.
(Makes 10 Servings)
PrintSpaghetti Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
Scale
- 2lbs Italian sausage
- 1 small onion (chopped)
- 4 garlic cloves (minced)
- 1 (28 ounces) can diced tomatoes
- 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
- 1 (15 ounces) can tomato sauce
- 2 cups water (if simmering for only 1 hour, 1 cup)
- 3 teaspoons basil
- 2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
- 1 Ā½ teaspoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon
- Ā¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (or more)
- Ā¼ teaspoon pepper
- Ā¼ cup red wine
Instructions
- In a large pot (I used a very big skillet) brown Italian sausage, breaking it up into bits as you stir.
- Add onions and continue to cook until they have become soft. Add garlic, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and water. Mix well.
- Add basil, parsley, brown sugar, salt, red pepper flakes, and black pepper. Mix well and bring to a slow boil. Stir in red wine.
- Ā Simmer on low stirring frequently for at least 1 hour. Serve over cooked spaghetti noodles.
I am glad that you stopped buying ready made sauces Bobby as you have made a wonderful spaghetti sauce.
Looks and sounds delicious! Never thought of using sausages…I wonder why, they add so much flavour! yum yum.
That spaghetti sauce is looking good. I ;ike using Italian sausage for my meat sauces as well as they add a lot of flavour.
I have been searching for the perfect homemade spaghetti sauce recipe. My husband’s grandmother used to make it from scratch, but she never wrote the recipe down. He loved it so much and has never liked anything I have tried making.
GOOD NEWS!!! He loved this recipe! Thank you so much, because my search is finally over. It was incredibly easy to make and very tasty.
It looks yummy…could I change the italian sausage for ground meat? It is difficult for me to find italian -sausage
Thanks!
Marcela – Yes, ground meat will work fine. Enjoy.
This is very similar to the un-written recipe of my Italian grandmother. Looks delicious š
This looks great (as usual!!!) Bobby. We ate lots of food like this skiing last week. It is a true time for comfort food! Fiona
I made this recipe on Saturday and my husband LOVED it. My store only had sweet or hot italian sausage; I chose hot and the sauce was a little too spicy. Not sure if I should stick with hot and cut back on the red pepper, go with the sweet sausage, or mix half sweet and half hot. Thoughts?
I made this last night for dinner. I used one tray of hot sausage and one tray of sweet basil sausage. I added the pepper flakes as the recipe called for. It was fantastic! Just the right amount of heat for us. However, if I were making it for others, I would use just the sweet. But my friends like it on the really tame side of hot.
This recipe is almost identical to the sauce I make, except I use one 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes, and one 28 oz. can tomato puree, and only 1/2 c. water to get the rest of the sauce out of the cans. I usually don’t like my sauce too thick so I omit the tomato paste. Use sweet Italian sausage, not the hot (my mother uses half sweet and half hot), ground beef, or leave out the meat altogether. Also I use less than 1/16 tsp red pepper flakes to give it a hint of spiciness, but not dominate the sauce. I use 3-4 Tb raw sugar (brown is fine too) to taste, and add 1/2 tsp oregano in addition to the same seasonings you listed. To prevent losing the garlic flavor, I only put half the amount when I sautee the onions, then add the last half, along with 1 Tb extra virgin olive oil about 5 min. before the sauce is done. I add cheap red wine about 1/2 hr before the sauce is finished cooking. My mother grows fresh basil in the summer which is fantastic for spaghetti sauce. Serve with a heaping tablespoon of ricotta cheese on the side and/or garlic bread.
For the garlic, I wanted to clarify that I always have a batch of chopped garlic preserved in oil in the refrigerator. It’s easy to prepare. Just peel the skin off about 5 or 6 whole bulbs of garlic. Either chop it up finely by hand or chop it coarsely and finish up the chopping more finely in a small grinder or food processor. Put it into a glass jar and immediately add oil about 1 1/4 – 1 1/2 times the volume of garlic, then stir well with a spoon to make sure all the garlic is covered well in the oil. If you do not add the oil right away, the garlic will get discolored (green). Most people would probably prefer to use olive oil, but I use corn oil because it is more all-purpose when in some dishes you don’t want that olive oil taste, and it does not get cloudy in the refrigerator like olive oil and has higher smoking point than olive oil. This method takes the bitterness out of the garlic and sometimes you might only want to use the garlic-flavored oil without the garlic bits. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 year. Avoid introducing any moisture (water) when you are preparing this and when you are putting a spoon into the jar to retrieve the garlic.
If you are really motivated, you can use a similar method as I described above to make a jar of garlic paste. The only difference is you use either a blender or food processor to chop the garlic super fine, adding the oil a tablespoon at a time, just enough to facilitate making it into a paste. For this, you do not want to use as much oil as above, less than 1/4 c. oil for 5 – 6 bulbs of garlic. Use this garlic paste for marinades, when you do not want chunks of garlic pieces which can burn and taste bitter.
Anyway, when I wrote that I add half the amount of garlic when I saute the onions for the spaghetti sauce, and the other half about 5 min. before the sauce is done, I was referring to this prepared chopped garlic in oil that I always use. It makes everything taste great!
I made this last week and it turned out fantastic. My mother in law liked it so much she was asking what I put in it. It’s so nice to find the perfect spaghetti sauce recipe. This year I have made four or five other recipes and this one is by far the best. The only thing I did was I used lean ground beef and drained it. Other than that, I will be making this for dinner this sunday for a dinner gathering along with your garlic bread. I’m also going to try out your apple crisp recipe! Thanks Bobby š
I am not sure if I am missing something, but under 1 Ā½ teaspoons brown sugar it states
1 teaspoon but does not indicate of what. Is there an ingredient missing?
Thanks Donna
Donna- the missing ingredient is salt.
Made this sauce a few nights ago with my own meatball recipe. It was a HIT! Thanks for sharing! I’m featuring this recipe on Crazy Cooking Challenge this month….hope you’ll check it out! https://momscrazycooking.blogspot.com/p/crazy-cooking-challenge.html
i love ur recipe! i put to much red pepper in. how can i tone it down