Favorite Quick Spaghetti Sauce
I eat rather a lot of pasta. When I started writing this post, I had to go back to see what stories I’ve already told you about my lifelong noodle-y obsession, just to make sure I wasn’t repeating something.
I’ve already mentioned that as a kid, I loved spaghetti with butter and parmesan cheese above all other things, and in fact I rarely tolerated the annoying hindrance of spaghetti sauce. It was sloppy, acidic, and mostly just not my thing. I still remember the first time I actually enjoyed a smear of red sauce atop a mound of pasta. Bizarrely, it was on a camping trip. In our open-air kitchen of two camp stoves and a picnic table, Dad carefully cooked a pot of pasta in one pot and in another, he combined a can of basic tomato sauce with a seasoning mix. I don’t know why I opted to try the sauce that time, but I suddenly realized this red sauce thing wasn’t necessarily so bad after all. To this day, however, I’m still pretty picky about my red sauces and rarely order them at a restaurant as a result.
There are a few brands and varieties I’ve discovered at the grocery over the years that I like rather well, but once I began canning my own basic tomato sauce, I felt it was time to finally find the homemade version I was seeking.
Since there are approximately one gazillion recipes for spaghetti sauce out there, each one claiming to be better than the last, it was a bit intimidating to know where to begin. Some swore by the addition of carrots and peppers, others piled on the sugar, and still others demanded the tomatoes be practically raw to achieve pure spaghetti sauce bliss. Fresh herbs, dried herbs, lots of spice, none at all – there really are so many ways to do this. How was I to know what I liked the most?
So I began experimenting. And after quite a few acceptable batches, I finally found the combination of herbs, seasoning, garlic, and onions that makes my soul sing.
For those of you who are fresh-herb-purists out there, you’ll probably decry my little piles of dried leaves and insist that their flavor is lacking. And perhaps you’re right. But I’ve loved the way this sauce turns out every time, and I like that it’s always something I can throw together without a trip to the grocery for delicate green leaves. If you do want to try fresh herbs, you’ll probably need more than the quantities listed below to achieve the same density of flavor.
And for you fresh-tomato-purists out there: do you know how many months of the year I can buy high-quality, delicious tomatoes in Colorado? About four. One third of the year. Great spaghetti sauce does not need to start from fresh tomatoes the night it is served, in my opinion. In fact that would take FOREVER to cook. Since I can my own tomatoes, I am lucky that I know where they came from and what’s in the sauce. I love that I can pull a bottle of that summer sunshine from the pantry and have a deep, vibrant spaghetti sauce ready in half an hour. There’s no way I’m starting from fresh tomatoes, especially at this time of year when the only tomatoes I can buy are, erm, horrible.
So here you have it: a delicious, flavorful spaghetti sauce that you can make year-round, without the need for anything that is out of season. I love this sauce on every pasta I’ve thrown it over – spaghetti, spaghetti with meatballs, manicotti, lasagne… the list goes on. When doubled, it takes a pound of ground beef perfectly for the creation of manicotti and lasagne.
Give it a shot!
Favorite Quick Spaghetti Sauce
1-2 tsp olive oil
1/2 c diced yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pint basic tomato sauce
1 T sugar
1 tsp dried parsley
1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt
pinch black pepper
Heat olive oil in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until onion is translucent and garlic has just a bit of color. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Cook until sauce has reached desired consistency.
Use an immersion blender, blender, or food processor to puree the sauce until smooth.
Serve over literally any pasta, or use as the sauce in manicotti or lasagne.
