Serve your preferred pasta with this sauce. This dish has been around since the Great Depression. My huge Italian family gathered in the kitchen and experimented with a variety of cheap Sunday dinner recipes. The absence of ground beef in this sauce astounded my family and friends. I share it the following day when I bring it to work. Colleagues adore it.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 20 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 6 large cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 sweet onion (such as Vidalia®), chopped
- 3 cups chopped cauliflower
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 3 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large saucepan or soup pot, and cook the garlic, onion, and cauliflower, stirring occasionally, until the cauliflower is browned and tender, about 30 minutes. Pour in the basil, black pepper, and crushed tomatoes, and simmer until the sauce is thickened and the flavors have blended, about 30 more minutes.
Reviews
Added parsley,ginger and turmeric. Lynn
I used 3 15 ounce cans of low salt diced tomato. Recipe called for 3 – 28 ounce tomato. I thought the three 15 ounce was plenty.
Added a bit more seasoning,spinach and vegetable broth! It was a hit!
For years I’ve only been preparing my sauce with ground beef. Today I felt rather bored to prepare the same thing and that’s when I found this recipe. It is just fantastic!! I throwed in a while cauliflower and a whole jar of tomato sauce. It worked well!! Surprisingly, my little ones loved them too. Looking forward to more from you
As mentioned in other reviews, the sauce tasted too acidic and didn’t have enough texture. I ended up adding sugar and salt which seemed to help. I also cooked up a bunch of veggies to add to the pasta as I found the sauce didn’t have enough cauliflower.
I only used one can of crushed and one small can of tomato sauce…..no water. It was great and my kids ate every bit and asked for more. (I have a picky eater who would not have tried it knowing the cauliflower was an ingredient) We definitely will try this again!!
I didn’t like the ratio of so many tomatoes and so little texture with the lost cauliflower. Nor did I like the high acidity taste of the tomatoes.
My husband loves the Ragu Bolognese recipe off this site served over gnocchi…holy cow, lead weight in my stomach! So I have tried to lighten it up a bit by trying this recipe and the Sicilian Lentil Pasta Sauce (also on this site) and he has remarked that it definitely has the mouth feel of a meat sauce…though the flavors are not there yet, but he’s willing to keep trying my experiments. Luckily! I felt the three cans of crushed was a bit much and adding tomato paste may help round out the flavors,Thank you impellizzeri kitchen for posting this recipe!
i cant give the full 5stars because i changed it a little. i tried to review earlier but the stars wouldnt show up so im reviewing it again. this is an AWESOME dish. so simple, healthy and delicious! i only used 1can tomatoes and a little water. as is written, its too acidic for my taste. i also added 1teaspn sugar to the tomatoes which i add to ALL canned tomato dishes to offset the acid. i crumbled a veg oxo cube to give depth of flavor and to balance the sugar in the tomatoes. it was perfect. thankyou for a great new way to use cauliflower.
A great change to an old favorite. We aren’t vegetarians, but loved this. I didn’t have enough garlic, so I added thyme, oregano and red pepper flakes for flavour. Also added mushrooms and red peppers for more veggies.
If you are expecting meat-tasting dish you will be disappointed, otherwise I simply LOVE this sauce, simple, easy and creative for cooking novices who wish to cook a pasta sauce with a twist. Thanks!
I used this recipe as a base though only half of it. I used a California veggie mix, 1 large can of diced tomatoes and the remnants of a jar of basil pesto. I added meatballs to this and served over spaghetti. It’s very runny so I mixed in 1/2 cup at least of Parm to help thicken and season, in addition to a couple of spices. Would be better to thicken with tomato paste, but I didn’t have any. We liked it.
This was very difficult to rate. For creativity, definitely 5 stars. We all liked it and it is healthy too. But I don’t think you can confuse it with a meat sauce. One reviewer suggested adding tomato paste and more seasoning. I would agree with that. Only giving 3 stars but maybe it should be 3.5 or 3.75. I would make it again.
i belong to a veggie co-op and always get desperate at the end of the week to make room for the new pick-up. i tried this with a head of cauliflower, two giant fresh tomatoes diced a jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce and a cup of leftover homemade tomato soup, plus lots of garlic and italian seasoning. tasted great and will even better tomorrow! update: put my leftovers on a pizza crust with a little cheese — love getting two meals in one.
We often have a vegetarian meal a few nights a week, and I wanted to do something different with my cauliflower. I will make this again-I did however use bought pasta sauce with Italian seasoning. I then tossed the sauce with cooked rigatoni pasta, transferred into a serving dish. I mixed a cup of shredded Italian blend cheese with 3/4 cup of sour cream, spread it over the top and grilled until brown and bubbling. A yummy hearty meal. Thanks.
Given the submitter’s claims, I was expecting the cauliflower to add more interest and texture to this sauce than it actually did. Can you tell there is no ground beef? Absolutely! (but that’s not much of a surprise). It IS a great idea as a budget stretcher and a very good way to get more veggies in. It was very bland but that is easily remedied and the texture of the sauce could easily be improved as well by using less crushed tomatoes and more diced tomatoes with tomato paste. I would make this recipe again with tweaks.
I was looking for a recipe to make use of a head of cauliflower and found this. Incredibly simple and healthy. A great lighter sauce perfect for vegetarians. Per other peoples reviews I added more seasonings (dried basil, oregano, red pepper flakes and some locatelli cheese as I normally do to my meat sauce). I also used one can whole tomatos and two cans tomato sauce as I just like the viscosity of my sauces better this way, but I feel the only flaw of the sause is its overwhelming tomato taste, id maybe only use one can of paste next time. Finally I added sliced mushrooms, as I’m a mushroom nut. Highly recommend this dish.
Good basic recipe. I added some Italian Seasoning, and a bit of brown sugar. I made a baked Spaghetti dinner with Mozzarella Cheese on top. YUM! Even the kids liked it!
i really like the texture the cauliflower gives this sauce. i added more herbs to suit my tastes because as written it wouldn’t have been flavourful enough for me.