Easy Marinara Sauce

  4.7 – 25 reviews  • Marinara

We developed this recipe after much trial and error and some wine selection tinkering. It has a mildly zingy flavor that is sweet to keep things interesting. excellent for any Italian cuisine. We even used it to make bombs using Italian sausage.

Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 45 mins
Total Time: 1 hr
Servings: 16
Yield: 16 servings

Ingredients

  1. 3 tablespoons olive oil
  2. 1 Spanish onion, chopped
  3. ¼ green bell pepper, chopped
  4. 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  5. 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  6. 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
  7. 2 teaspoons salt
  8. 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  9. 1 teaspoon dried basil
  10. ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
  11. ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
  12. 4 (14.5 ounce) cans diced tomatoes
  13. 1 (14 ounce) can tomato sauce
  14. 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
  15. 1 cup white wine

Instructions

  1. Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat; cook and stir onion, green bell pepper, and garlic until onion is translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Add brown sugar, Italian seasoning, salt, oregano, basil, black pepper, and red pepper flakes; cook and stir until brown sugar dissolves and seasoning is fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes.
  2. Stir tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, and white wine into the seasoned onion mixture; bring to a boil for 10 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until flavors have blended, at least 30 minutes.

Reviews

Donna Jones
Lovely! I halved the sugar and salt and didn’t miss it 🙂 ! This will be our go to base sauce!!
Sara Ellis
This sauce was so easy to make and delicious! The only changes I made were to substitute Merlot for white wine and to add shredded carrots. I also used a submersion blender to smooth out the consistency.
William Clark
I have to say, I was born and raised very italian, I was just going thru recipes to open my mind to other ideas. The minute I saw this recipe, I was like… OMG… perfect. I’m not one for measuring, I was taught to cook by taste, but this is what I would have done… thank you for putting it down on paper…very nice!
Kathleen Johnson
Love love love! This is so easy and so delicious! The only thing I do differently is to run an immersion blender through it at the end.
Connor Booth
Because of some temporary diet restrictions I had to omit the garlic & onions. Just increased the other flavorings and it was very good. Will make again.
Dawn Jennings
This was the best marinara sauce I’ve made in years! I omitted the green peppers but sautéed some hot Italian sausage. Also put it all in the crock pot on low for 5 hours, delicious! Will definitely make it again
Victor Wolf
I more than doubled the tomatoes and used all fresh tomatoes, I also doubled the spices, kept everything else as is, cooked in crock pot for 4hrs then used immersion blender, so tasty! Froze the extra, will make again for sure
Robert Allen
A little too sweet for my taste.
Keith Harris
Excellent sauce! Just put everything into the crock pot and cooked one hour on high and four hours on low. Followed the recipe except for the addition of fresh mushrooms.
John Guerrero
I made this sauce with homemade ravioli’s for Christmas for a large family gathering and it was a huge success. My daughters dipped bread in the pot as the sauce simmered. They said it was addictive. I wouldn’t change a thing. This marinara is amazing!
Gabrielle Gray
Hands down the most flavorful marinara I’ve ever made … and my kids loved it! Next time, I’ll sub red wine for white just to see how it turns out. Loved this recipe!
Scott Butler
This was sooo amazingly delicious! I did make several changes based on what ingredients I had. I left out the peppers and for seasoning just used italian, basil, salt & pepper, and red pepper flakes (a healthy amount because I like spicy). I used only a can of tomatoes and no tomato sauce or paste. I used a splash of red wine that I had on hand instead of white. Added a dash of flour to thicken it up, brought to a boil and then simmered about 10 minutes. It turned out great and was so easy.
Kyle Alexander
Life saver recipe. Thank you! This is a forgiving recipe as well. I used a combination of 2 cans tomato sauce, 2 cans tomato paste, and one can tomatoes. Think it would have probably been better if I’d used the ingredients listed. However, I used what I had and came out great. The seasonings are what make what I had work.
Katelyn Esparza
Life saver recipe. Thank you! This is a forgiving recipe as well. I used a combination of 2 cans tomato sauce, 2 cans tomato paste, and one can tomatoes. Think it would have probably been better if I’d used the ingredients listed. However, I used what I had and came out great. The seasonings are what make what I had work.
Ashley Burton
This is a SUPERB marina! A keeper for real. I made only a couple changes. I was out of white wine, so I used sweet red wine, 1/2 cup. I substituted the green bell for roasted jarred red bell pepper. And, I sautéed the onion, pepper, garlic and spices until onion was tender. I processed the tomatoes first then, added the onion mix and processed until smooth. Then poured into sauce pan and cooked on low for an hour. Turned out so delicious, I couldn’t stop taking spoons full out for testing…delicious just by itself…..lol
Michael Bell
Love this recipe! I made a few minor adjustments to suit my family’s tastes, but the basic ratios of tomato paste, diced tomato, and tomato sauce are perfect. I will never buy sauce in a jar again!
Steven Livingston MD
Wonderful! Now my family wants this instead of jarred sauce!
Miguel Baldwin
Best meat sauce we’ve had! The description is bang on – sweet yet zingy!
Adrian Benson
I’ve made this before and it is very good. This time I added a bunch of mushroom to it. It’s simmering now and will be refridgerated overnight. Tomorrow I’ll bring it back up to temp, add browned Italian sausage links and fresh basil. I’ll simmer it an hour to make sure the sausage is cooked thru. As Justin Wilson used to say, “I guarantee”. I’ll add a photo tomorrow as well.
James Palmer
This was pretty good, also easy, as the title says. It makes a lot of sauce. The depth of flavour that a long simmered sauce has is not there, but I plan to put a parmesan rind in next time, as well as adding some fresh chopped Italian parsley, and I think those changes will help. Thanks!
Susan Castillo
So simple and oh so YUM! I didn’t measure anything (mom never did so I never do), used fresh tomatoes and only had red wine. Thanks for a great marinara recipe! Brown Sugar….WOW 🙂

 

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