One thing you're bound to see no end of when you stock part of your larder from food pantries, is canned diced tomatoes. You get a lot of cans of tomato sauce, too, but I never get those — I only use tomato paste and puree. So, what do you do with a shelf piled high with diced tomatoes? You make spaghetti sauce pretty often, is what you do!
Today's Specimen
Yields 3 quarts, or about 9 servings
Ingredients
- 1 lb mild Italian ground sausage
- 1×28 oz + 1×10 oz cans (38 oz total) tomato puree
- 1×12 oz tomato paste
- 2½ cups zucchini
peeled, quartered, and chopped - 1½ cups yellow onion, diced
- 1 lb baby bellas, lage ones halved
- 2 Tbsp garlic, diced fine
- 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning blend
- 1 Tbsp basil
- 2 Tbsp parsley
- ½ tsp fennel seed
- 1 pinch nutmeg
- 1 bay leaf
- ¼ tsp black pepper
- ¼ tsp table salt
- ½ tsp honey
- 12 oz water + water to consistency
- oil to saute veggies
Directions
- Start heating the tomato puree and paste with the diced tomatoes and water in a large pot (1 gallon) on medium heat. (crock pot: set to high.)
- Brown the sausage in a saucepan on medium-high heat until none of the meat is pink, chopping into small chunks as you cook. Set aside.
- Saute the zucchini and onion in a saucepan on medium-high heat until the onion turns translucent. Use about 3 Tbsp cooking oil (I use canola) and stir often. Set aside.
- Add the water (12 oz), the baby bellas, and the cooked meat and veggies to the tomato mixture in the pot, along with the spices and honey. Add some more water if necessary ½ cup at a time — just bear in mind the goal yield is 12 cups. As soon as the mixture starts simmering drop the temperature to low. (crock pot: keep set to high until the sauce starts to simmer, then drop to low and cover dependent on how watery the sauce is — if it's thick cover it, if it's watery cover it about ⅔ to ¾ of the way.)
- Simmer partially covered on low for 3 hours, stirring every 20 to 30 minutes and adding water if necessary; simmer over 3 hours if you need to reduce the sauce — you shouldn't need to for more than an hour extra unless you added a LOT OF water (which sometimes happens), just don't forget to keep stirring! (crock pot: simmer on low for 8 hours, adding water or adjusting the cover as necessary. Add the garlic and remove the bay leaf after 6 hours.)
- After it's done set the sauce aside to cool and stir in the garlic and remove the bay leaf. You now have 3 quarts of marinara sauce to do as you please with (it freezes really well).
Next Time Around
Honestly, I can't think of how I'd make this sauce differently. I suppose it could be a little sweeter, in which case I'd omit the bay leaf and black pepper.
- Increase the fennel seed to 1 tsp
- Increase the honey to 1 tsp
- Omit the bay leaf
- Omit the black pepper
