Weeknight Spaghetti Sauce

This is the go-to spaghetti sauce in the house. The time-intensive weekend sauce has mostly fallen out of favor because it’s generally not any better - and is sometimes worse - that this sauce. With very minor (probably irrelevant) modification, it becomes pizza sauce or tomato soup. The difference mostly comes down to the spices.

An individual in my house always asks for spaghetti when asked for their dinner ideas. We usually say no, but often enough, we make it. I spent a few iterations trying to perfect my big batch, weekend spaghetti sauce (more of a traditional red sauce than strictly spaghetti), but that’s something that we only seem to be able to stock up to last us during the prime tomato season and maybe a month or two after. Much of the year, we have to use this quicker method and I imagine it’s time to write it down.

This recipe is sort of a mix-and-match between a baked spaghetti recipe from Paula Deen, which was the first spaghetti recipe that I made from “scratch” where the sauce tasted like I remembered the spaghetti sauces of my childhood from the bag of McCormick seasoning, and Kenji’s Food Lab Perfect Easy Red Sauce recipe (not online, I guess).

Note, despite the common acceptance that imported whole San Marzano tomatoes are the absolute best for a red sauce, I prefer local tomatoes instead (not really picky about variety). I think folks’ preference for San Marzano (if they’re being honest and not just thinking imported from the heart of Italian red sauce country is the best) is because it’s slightly sweet due to the acidic soil in the vicinity of Mt. Vesuvius. I don’t like sweet with my meals and I particularly hate sweet spaghetti sauce. While San Marzanos don’t ruin the sauce for me, they tend toward a sweetness that I prefer to not have.

Ingredients

• 2 T extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 T butter
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 1 bulb garlic, pressed
• 1 T Italian seasoning
• Generous pinch red pepper flakes
• 1 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes (I’ve been meaning to transition to whole peeled tomatoes, but haven’t gotten to it). See note above regarding variety.
• 1 15 oz. can tomato sauce (I’ve tried just diced tomatoes, but the sauce really improves it to my unsophisticated taste)
• 0.5 lb. homemade Italian sausage (I need to make an entry for this, too)
• Stem fresh basil
• Kosher salt

Process

1. Heat the olive oil and butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat until the butter has melting and the foaming subsides. Add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until softened but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic, Italian seasoning, and pepper flakes and cook, stirring until fragrant, about 1 minute.
2. Add the tomatoes with their juice, and the basil, if using. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thickened and slightly reduced, about 15 minutes.
3. An individual in my family (not the spaghetti-requester) doesn’t like “rustic” spaghetti sauces (i.e., chunky, from what I can tell), so at this point, I blend it smooth with an immersion blender.
4. Brown sausage separately. Add to sauce, trying to avoid adding the rendered fat.
5. Let sauce simmer, 30+ minutes (the longer, the better) to develop flavors.