Marinara / Spaghetti Sauce

Everyone is always quick to grab canned spaghetti sauces for their pasta nights, but marinara sauce is actually very easy to make from scratch, and you'll get a brighter flavor from a more freshly made sauce. You can always make it ahead of time and freeze it.

Sometimes, if I have some ground beef I want to use up, I'll cook and add it to the sauce. At that point, it becomes more of an "American spaghetti sauce" than a marinara, but either one is great on pasta.

Ingredients

For the marinara

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 sprigs of basil
• 2 28-ounce cans of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes
  • If you can't specifically find San Marzano tomatoes, that's ok, but San Marzano tomatoes produce the best results
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2-3 tablespoons tomato paste
• Red pepper flakes and dried oregano, optional
• Salt and pepper

Optionally, for the spaghetti sauce

• Ground beef
• 2 tbsp olive oil (or 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp butter)
• Red pepper flakes
• Fennel seeds
• Salt and pepper
• Ground nutmeg

Directions

Marinara

1. In a heavy pot, heat the olive oil on medium. When hot, add the garlic.
2. Once the garlic becomes fragrant, optionally add a pinch of red pepper flakes and a pinch of dried oregano. (h/t to Babish for this tip) Add the onion, and cook until the onion is soft and translucent, stirring frequently.
3. Add the tomato paste, and stir to evenly distribute.
4. Add the tomatoes and stir. Break up whatever tomatoes you can at this point with your spatula. (some tomatoes will need to be cooked before they can be broken up, so you don't need to get all of it)
5. Gently stir in your sprigs of basil.
6. Bring the sauce to a simmer. Once it's simmering, reduce the heat to medium-low and half-cover the pot with a lid to let the sauce reduce. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
7. Remove from heat, remove the basil sprigs, and break up any remaining large tomato pieces. Stir in the butter until fully melted. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
8. Serve over pasta, or put into containers for later.

Spaghetti sauce

1. Heat your olive oil (or olive oil and butter) in a pan on medium. Add a pinch of red pepper flakes and a pinch of fennel to the heating oil.
2. Add the ground beef. Break up the beef and cook until browned. Drain the beef, return to pan, and season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of ground nutmeg.
3. Add some of the marinara sauce in with the meat and stir to combine. How much you add is up to you and what you want your meat/sauce ratio to be - I tend to do 1lb for 1/2 of the marinara amount above, but you can also cut that meat amount in half if it's too much. If your marinara was prepared earlier and is cold, heat the sauce until it starts to simmer.
4. Serve over pasta.