My inner twelve-year-old is having a field day as I try to describe this spaghetti sauce recipe without sounding like a pervert. In fact, I give completely up, snicker away. It’s a thick and meaty sauce perfect over spaghetti noodles or sauteed vegetables for the gluten-free and low carb crowd. Personally, I prefer zucchini and yellow squash with garlic rather than spaghetti squash.
I frequently double, triple, or even quadruple this recipe, just remember you will need quite a large pot.
Since this recipe works so well for several other meals that our family loves:
Future-Heather always appreciates past-Heather’s efforts.
Freeze the leftovers flat in zippered freezer bags or in freezer safe mason jars.
One of my favorite things for extra-flavorful spaghetti is to drain the noodles when they reach the al dente (just done) stage and then return them to the pot where they were boiled. Then I scoop several ladle-fulls of spaghetti sauce into the noodles and give it a good stir. This makes sure that all of the noodles get a good coating of sauce before serving.
I do this before I begin making the kids set the table, cutting the garlic bread, or even tossing the romaine lettuce with caesar dressing.
If you are currently on a very tight budget and only have access to ground beef, it’s ok to swap out all ground beef for the sausage, just increase your spices and maybe add a little bit of crushed red pepper if you have any on hand. This recipe also works well with meat substitutions like Beyond Beef. You can even bulk the recipe up using lentils. Again, you will want to adjust the seasonings to make up for what was not brought into the recipe by the sausage.
Enjoy!
Please let me know if you have tried this recipe and what you think of it.
My old Italian grandparents would rant and rave for hours about how the Irish and Polish ruined good Italian sauce with sugar.Which generally turned into a rant about how the reason I was a rotten kid was the half of me that is Irish. 🙂
Their secret was lower simmer & longer time. Now, when I say “time” I mean the sauce was started at 6 am and you were lucky if you could eat it by 8 pm. Me ole’ gran once did a 48 hour simmer on a vat of sauce.
Of course the other side of that is my old Italian aunt, sister to the aforementioned grandmother, put raisins in her meatballs, which made her the black sheep. These people were crazy, is what I’m saying. 😉
@stark23x you did read the culinary tradition above, right? There wasn’t one claim that this was traditional 🙂
I was in an airport bar in Chicago having a beer and talking to another traveler about food and cooking. Apparently I was being a bit enthusiastic with the “gesticulating” as a passerby interrupted our conversation to ask if I was Italian.
@HeatherSolos I’m a handsy talker too. I blame the maternal half.
BTW, I’m totally fine with the shortcut of a bit of sugar to cut the acid in the sauce. I do, however, draw the line at cutting spaghetti. It’s a bone of contention with the Mrs. She’s a cutter. I say learn to twirl or eat elbows. 🙂
@stark23x @HeatherSolos My father is a ‘spaghetti cutter’. I think it was 4 or 5 years after they got married when he finally figured out why his (irish) mother’s spagetti was shorter than his (italian) wife’s spaghetti. Grammie used to break it before it even went in the pot.
He still can’t twirl his spaghetti, but several years ago my mom bought him a twirling fork. It has a little handle on the end that makes the tines turn in a circle so he can ‘twirl’ his spaghetti
@stark23x @HeatherSolos Oh & I had to read that last sentence about 5 times beofre I realized elbows=elbow noodles, not actual human elbows. 🙂 What can I say it’s Monday
@bookchick@stark23x Have another cup of coffee. Heck, I’m thinking of brewing an extra pot today.
@MommyNamedApril how the heck are you? It’s been a while
@HeatherSolos craaaanky. LOL. never see you on Skype anymore 🙁
Traditional or not, I’m making some and stocking my freezer. Always need some meat sauce handy. (and insert 12 year old giggle.)
@KateNolan at least I’m in good company. Yes, every omnivore’s freezer should have plenty of meat sauce.