I’ve spent more than ten years developing my basic tomato sauce recipe. A small amount of cheese that has been melted into the sauce gives tremendous richness without overpowering the tomatoes. And maintaining a supply of these ingredients at home is simple! creates delicious leftovers!
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- ½ cup olive oil
- 2 white onions, diced
- 8 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 (28 ounce) can petite diced tomatoes
- 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon white sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 cup freshly grated Pecorino-Romano cheese, divided
- ¾ cup chopped fresh basil
- ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat; cook and stir onions for 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent, about 5 minutes more.
- Mix petite diced tomatoes, diced tomatoes, white wine, tomato paste, oregano, salt, sugar, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and bay leaves into onion mixture; reduce heat to low, cover Dutch oven, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until flavors blend, about 1 hour.
- Remove the Dutch oven from heat. Add 1/2 cup Pecorino Romano cheese, basil, and parsley into sauce; stir until cheese melts, about 5 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Sprinkle remaining cheese over sauce when serving.
- It’s almost better the day after. Make it the day before and heat it up for company!
- This recipe is also very forgiving. It’s the perfect starting point for all kinds of tomato sauce experimentation (add ground beef, add sausage, serve over chicken cutlets, or try different cheeses or herbs, etc).
Reviews
My first attempt with marinara sauce. Forgiving for sure, as no basil…used basil pesto, replaced 1 can of diced tomatoes with same amount of crushed tomatoes. Will make it again!
Loved it. Will freeze the left overs. My go to tomato sauce.
Delicious and not difficult at all. I made it tonight and will have it with tortellini tomorrow. I can’t wait for dinner!
Incredible! We come up with ways to use it since it is so delicious. We’re going to use it as pizza sauce next week. It really is wow!
It is terrific and easy. I’ve made it approximately 8 times. Love it.
The perfect sauce! My family requests this marinara sauce over any other. Even my daughter who doesn’t eat any “red” sauce loves this.
My go to recipe for quick and easy spaghetti sauce.
Great recipe
Tried this sauce today, and it was a success all round, this is my new spaghetti sauce from now on, thank you all recipe.
Really good sauce. Made Meatballs Divine from this site and simmered both the sauce and meatballs for 3 hours. Yum.
Straightforward and delicious. Nicely balanced. I didn’t change a thing.
Very flavorful and thick. Tastes old school, Italian like my Sicilian neighbors used to make in high school. Loved it… even my picky teenagers liked it.
This is an excellent sauce. I followed the recipe exactly, except used crushed rather than diced tomatoes and less olive oil.
I really didn’t make this recipe, but I am Italian, and I learned how to cook sauce exactly the same way my mother did using this exact recipe. We never measured, but we eyeballed it, did it by sight, smell, and most importantly, taste. I changed out the sugar for a bit of carrot. Trust me, you won’t miss the wasted calories from the sugar and your kids will never know there’s carrot in the sauce.
Excellent sauce! Easy to make and I only eliminated the crushed red pepper. I did not have any! Oops My men loved every bite of it.
It was super easy and super good. Didn’t last long as all three batches went quickly and I had three requests for the recipe.
Turned out amazing! My favorite sauce as of today. However I did make some adjustments. I cut the recipe in half as I thought the original would yield too much for my home. I did add diced mushrooms while saluting the onions and browned 1lb Italian seasoned ground turkey. Since mushrooms sweat (produce extra liquid) I used a full can of tomato paste. I cut down the olive oil to about 2T and used a mixture of oregano and thyme. I decided to use my slow cooker and cooked it for about an hour then took out the bay leaves, threw in the fresh basil and cheese and then put in a splash of white wine instead of the suggested amount. Slow cooked for another hour and boy, I can eat this out of the pot by itself! Thank you for sharing!
there were several changes I made to this recipe. Do to my preferences. I used one large can of crushed tomatoes. This replaces diced tomatoes. Instead of 1/2 cup of olive oil. I used 2 tbs. (because I cook low fat). Also omitted the wine. the recipe turned out great. Definitely will make it again.
Added a rib of chopped celery and a chopped carrot for sweetness. Excellent sauce to add meat to.