Marinara Sauce

The boys LOVE pasta and their favorite is spaghetti and meatballs. I had a very ripe flat of tomatoes from Costco and what better and faster way to use them all up than to make marinara sauce. A small jar of good sauce is expensive so making my own sauce would be cheaper taste better, too. I found a basic marinara sauce recipe and then added my own fling to it...

Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 yellow onions, peeled and diced
• 2-3 carrots, minced
• 6-8 cloves garlic, minced (~2 tbs)
• *2 tbs dried herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, sage, etc.)
• 2-3 Italian sausage links, casings removed
• 1/2 c red wine
• 1 c beef stock
• **12 c ripe tomatoes, peeled and seeded
• 1 sm can tomato paste
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In large soup pot, heat olive oil. Add onions and cook slowly on medium heat until they start to caramelize. They should be evenly browned and soft. Add carrots and cook for 3-5 minutes. Set veggies aside and cook ground sausage. When done, set aside in the veggie mixture. 
2. Deglaze pan with 1/2 cup of red wine and beef stock and cook for 3-5 minutes. Stir in veggie/sausage mixture and add tomatoes, their juice and tomato paste. Stir to combine. Simmer and cook on low stirring occasionally for 4+ hours. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. *Dried herbs hold their flavor much longer than fresh herbs when slow cooking. If you want to use fresh herbs, add them at end of cooking process just before serving. 
4. **If you don’t have fresh tomatoes, use 2- 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes, 1- 28 oz can of whole tomatoes and 1- 6 oz can of tomato paste. When using canned tomatoes, add 2 tbs sugar to counteract acidity of canned tomatoes.

Source: Adapted from Former Chef


UPDATE: 1/14/10


I thawed some homemade marinara sauce in the fridge overnight and added the following as I was re-heating the sauce:

• 1/2 cup of cooked Italian ground sausage
• meatballs
• yellow bell pepper, diced
• handful of Italian parsley, chopped
• add as many sauteed veggies as you'd like for a chunky marinara: eggplant, zucchini, squash, mushroom, etc..

I let it simmer for a couple hours and served over bowtie pasta. It was REALYYYYYYY tasty!

(drool)

Meat sauce is my weakness.

I love this stuff.

For reals.