Those who don’t want to eat actual cheese can substitute aged Italian cheese made from almonds and nutritional yeast. It is difficult to distinguish between the flavors when one is used in pesto or on top of pasta. Try it over some popcorn, too. Additionally, this combo is loaded with nutrients.
| Prep Time: | 25 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 40 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 pound spicy Italian sausage
- ¼ cup white wine
- ½ onion, chopped
- ½ cup sliced mushrooms
- ½ green bell pepper, chopped
- ¼ cup red wine
- ¼ cup Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 6 bay leaves
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 pinch dried rosemary
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- ½ teaspoon dried sage
- ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
- 6 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
- 2 (6 ounce) cans tomato paste
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
- In a large pot combine white wine, onion, mushrooms and bell pepper. Cook on medium heat until vegetables are tender. Stir in red wine, Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper, bay leaves, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, basil, rosemary, allspice, salt, thyme, sage, marjoram, tomato sauce, tomato paste and sausage. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes.
- Stir in brown sugar and confectioners’ sugar; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 335 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 30 g |
| Cholesterol | 43 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 6 g |
| Protein | 13 g |
| Saturated Fat | 7 g |
| Sodium | 1925 mg |
| Sugars | 21 g |
| Fat | 19 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
This recipe is very tasty, bold and spicy, you will definitely need a good bottle of Chianti or some other red wine. Will keep this one on top til something beats it. Delish!!
My family’s favorite sauce!
FLavor combination was awesome. Loved the sweet, spicy flavor.
This was really delicious. Only sub I made was lean ground pork for the spicy sausage. I may have added a few more mushrooms… yum I did add some water to it.. very thick
added a few extra ingredients and took some out to suit my flavor more.
Way too spicy for me. It was a nice change up from normal spaghetti. 🙂
Anytime you are adding tomatoes to a sauce, be sure and check for their sweetness. Some tomatoes have more sweetness and others are more bitter. Sugar is normally added to counteract the bitterness that tomatoes sometimes have. So, again, depending on the sweetness of your canned or fresh tomatoes is how you should add the sugar, and also to your own taste.
This reminded me of ketchup with sausage in it… very thick and too sweet for us. Sorry
Great Sauce. I only added red wine didn’t have any white on hand, added extra garlic like another suggeated. I left out the rosemary (allergy) let it simmer or about an hour and half. My 5yo loved it ate 3 helpings even my hubby who is not a big pasta fan enjoyed it.
We loved this recipe , my husband has been looking for a sauce that is like Mom’s. Sweet and a little spicy , this one nailed ! We revised a little, Ground Beef for Italian Sausage and no wine . Still Awesome !!!
OMG, this is fabulous–just like my Sicilian step-grandpa used to make. All my life I’ve been looking for a recipe that lives up to his sauce–and this is it! I used Newman’s organic marinara instead of the tomatoes/paste, and more red (& green) peppers. Now THIS tastes authentic!
I didn’t have enough red wine for my normal sauce, so I used this as a base to make a different sauce. Very good. It felt like it was missing something, so I added a pinch of cinnamon and some sugar. Great!
Too Sweet,too thick, and too many different flavor combinations going on. Bought a lot of extra spices and wines that I wouldn’t normally buy just to make this recipe.
This sauce ended up tasting exactly like a brand name sauce, which was not what I expected. The sauce itself tasted very good, but was too sweet for our palate. As I said before, it comes off tasting like it came from a jar. We prefer more traditional, rustic marinaras.
Sorry, but it just wasn’t good. The consistency was very thick–looked like someone had left it on the stove for 10 hours and the liquid had evaporated, even though my daughter followed the recipe to a “T”. The closest description I can come up with is that it tasted like someone had mixed up a stuffing recipe with their sauce recipe and this was a result. Guess to our family, sage, thyme, marjoram, etc. are for stuffings and poultry instead of Italian sauce.
We loved this sauce! It’s sweet and spicy at the same time. Very addicting! 🙂
Fabulous sauce! We really enjoyed the spices and spicy-ness of it. Thanks for a great recipe!
This was one of the most fabulous sauces I’ve ever tasted-thanks Jeremy! I’ve made it several times trying both the ground beef and the spicy italian sausage for friends and family alike and it’s always a big hit-whichever version. The only modification I do is to use fresh garlic and more green pepper and mushrooms. Definetly a keeper!
oddly sweet and a muddy flavour from the spice mixture fighting with itself. Hard to imagine that crushed tomatoes, garlic, basil. black pepper and bit of red wine isn’t going to be a much happier combination – if necessary do some mushrooms and onions in a bit of olive oil (boiling them in wine is going to make them slimey) if that’s what you’d like and a touch of oregano.
This sauce is definitely unique. It wasn’t bad, but it had such a strong flavor from one of the spices, it was hard to eat too much of it. I think it was the allspice, had a strong clove taste to it. I followed the recipe exactly except used mild Italian sausage. I would try this again, but cutting down on some of the over powering spices, and adding some garlic. If you’re looking to wake up your taste buds, this sauce is for you!
This is one of the best spaghetti sauces that I have ever made as I have never been a real fan of make-it-myself sauces. I really never found one that I was crazy about until this one. The closest I get to homemade is to buy the Spatini packages at the store. While this recipe is time consuming and probably better made on the weekend if you are one of those busy working moms like I am, it really came out great, especially if you are a person that likes spicy food! (my family loves spicy:) The only change that I made to the recipe was to add some water to thin it somewhat. We tend to like thinner sauces and this one is most definitely thick! It smells wonderful while it is cooking and will certainly become one of my recipe box recipes:)