Ripe tomatoes and chilli peppers are used to make the Mexican sauce known as salsa roja. Excellent for enchiladas and tacos as well as as a dip. can be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge for up to a week.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 4 hrs 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 4 hrs 50 mins |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 10 servings |
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 (1 inch thick) slice beef shank
- 2 pounds pork spareribs
- 2 bone-in chicken thighs
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 pinch salt
- 6 cloves garlic
- 3 (28 ounce) cans crushed Italian (plum) tomatoes (such as San Marzano)
- 2 cups water, divided
- ¼ cup tomato paste
- ¼ cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
- 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf (Italian) parsley
- 2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
- Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil in the bottom of a large roasting pan. Place beef, pork, and chicken in pan and turn to coat with olive oil.
- Roast in the preheated oven until meat is well browned, 20 to 30 minutes.
- Heat remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Cook and stir onion with a pinch of salt in hot oil until onion is soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic; cook and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Pour crushed tomatoes, 1 1/2 cups water, and tomato paste into onion mixture. Add roasted beef, pork, and chicken to tomato sauce mixture.
- Pour remaining 1/2 cup water into the roasting pan, and bring to a boil while scraping the browned bits of food off of the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Pour roasting pan water mixture into tomato mixture. Stir Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, Italian parsley, 2 teaspoons salt, ground black pepper, and red pepper flakes into tomato sauce; bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low, and simmer gently until sauce reduces and meat is tender, about 4 hours. Transfer meat to a dish. Adjust sauce seasonings to taste.
- Any canned tomato product will work. If using whole canned tomatoes, pour them into a large bowl and crush them with your hands.
- The nutrition data for this recipe includes the full amount of the beef, pork, and chicken. The actual amount of meat consumed will vary.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 339 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 20 g |
| Cholesterol | 71 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 5 g |
| Protein | 23 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 916 mg |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 20 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I followed everything but I didn’t add chicken , as this was just to strange for me . Excellent sauce will definitely make again
Love this spaghetti sauce.. no more jar bought sauces in this house
I made this pretty my as written; with a few exceptions… I wanted to take a page out of Chef John’s tomato sauce recipe, so I caramelized some tomato paste along with the onions, and I didn’t have anchovies, so I substituted some Asian fish sauce and the ever so tiniest drop of oyster sauce to make up for the anchovies. Also, I added some chopped sweet peppers into the mix when I was sautéing the onions and they added a nice flavor and a bit more texture to the sauce. Now for the meat, the only beef I had was ground, and I didn’t want to use that, so I used four chicken thighs and some hot Italian sausage links and it was absolutely delicious. Served it up on some spaghetti noodles along side some garlic bread. Best part is that there is leftover sauce, and we all know that these kind of sauces are ALWAYS better the second day.
I didn’t grow up with a Sunday Sauce cooking all day so I was interested to try it, especially with the different types of meat. I wasn’t sure what to do with the meat once I took it out of the sauce, it wasn’t appealing to me to add to the sauce or eat on the side but the flavor of the sauce was fantastic. It has a lot of depth of flavor and a lightness to it as well, not heavy or weighted down. Followed the exact recipe and will make again.
I made this last night and it is delicious! Tastes just like the “Sunday Gravy” my family back East used to make. I also made Chef John’s meatball recipe and added it to the simmering sauce. Will definitely be making this again!
This sauce is absolutely yummy! Thank you Chef John!
DELICIOUS!! I’ve never made “Sunday Sauce” before but have always wanted to! I feel I would have made my Italian Ancestors very proud today. This recipe is easy yet complex and you reap the benefits flavor wise! My wife (somewhat picky) said it was better than anything she’s eaten at an Italian restaurant in a long time. Looking forward to playing with this recipe in the future and use different cuts of meat.
Awesomely delicious
loved it. Had to simmer it for 4 hours. really good the next day. Making again one week after the fisy time.
I am a pretty good cook. I had NO idea that by braising meat; I use whatever dark meat on hand; thighs with skin, ribs (pork and/or beef) that this changes the world of gravy for any pasta; lasagna, linguine, fettuccine, ziti, etc. This gravy is a life-changer for me. Now I feel like a gravy snob as I can tell when no meats/marrow have been stewed in the gravy! Make a double batch and freeze it. SO worth it.
This is wonderful
Just fine as is! This is what Italian friends’ grandmas made while we were all growing up. Two rules: 3 kinds of meat, and the meat’s gotta MELT off the bones!
Oh wow this was great. For the meat I used Italian sausages and the pork spare ribs. I only had 2 hours to cook this in and it was still wonderful – I can only imagine how good it would have been if I had the 4 required. This is definitely now my weekend go to pasta sauce recipe.
good one
Very good as written! Will make it again. Thanks Chef!
I’ve made this 3 times and love having it in the freezer ready whenever I need it. I like it just as written although sometimes hard to find the beef shank I do prefer using it. Crushed tomatoes worked better than crushing myself (to watery) and the San Marzano yummy!
I’ll definitely make it again!
My mother used to do something similar but with chicken only. I skipped the roasting of meats because I used some leftover shredded chuck roast instead of beef shank and used pull pork. I added no water, added a little beef broth, and used only 2 cans of crushed tomatoes. I did cooked recipe in a slow cooker and it was different compared to a spaghetti tomato sauce.
Amazing followed the recipe to the t
This was wonderful! I had a bunch of ripe Roma tomatoes from the garden, but not enough to can. So I used them in place of the canned tomatoes. Only thing I did differently is not add the water or red pepper flakes and I added a minced stock of celery with leaves. After it cooked a while, I used my hand immersion mixer for just a second, leaving a lot of tomato lumps. This was so good, I can’t wait to make it again. Thanks, Chef John!
Once again, another hit from Chef John. I couldn’t find beef shank. A friend who is a local chef suggested ox tails. Couldn’t find those either. Nor did I want to buy a whole package of chicken thighs, because my grocery store didn’t have any loose ones at the counter. So I took Chef John’s advice and improvised. I used two smoked turkey wings, about two pounds of pork riblets, and some beef short ribs. It turned out fantastic. The slow simmer and reduction really concentrates the flavors and produces a very rich dish. I added about a TBS of basil because I really like it in my tomato sauces. I love cooking things like this on a lazy Sunday. It reduced quite a bit but there was still enough for a couple of meals with my son with a lot left over. I will probably freeze the rest after we have it again tomorrow night.