Italian Red Sauce for Pasta

Makes a lot.

Ingredients

3 26oz Cans of San Marzano Tomatoes

1 6oz Can of Tomato Paste

1 Large Onion (Or 2-medium), diced

6 cloves of Garlic

Basil

Oregano

Italian Seasoning Mix

Red Pepper Flakes

1 Cooked Italian Sausage

1 3" stick of Pepperoni (Optional)

4oz Red Wine (Optional)

Parmesan Cheese Rind (Optional)

For Serving

Pasta (Dried or Fresh)

Grated Parmesan cheese

Baguette or other hard crusty bread (Optional)

Meatballs and Italian Sausage (Optional)

"Special" Equipment

Really Large pot, not aluminum

Blender, Either Stick or Carafe

Another long winded explanation about my childhood! Except not. That being said, I have no idea what sort of red sauce this is classified as. I also don't really care that much. You'll get those when I get started on BBQ.

However, this is also a modified version of my mom's pasta sauce recipe, which she learned from my father's mother, who learned it from my grandfather's mother, who is the actual Italian in this. Mine is better, because I started using fresher ingredients, and I added some stuff based on stuff I learned from Loretta Paganini's cooking school (Great place in Cleveland Ohio, go look it up). However, this is probably the flavor of my childhood.

On how many ingredients:

Maybe one day I'll measure, but it depends also on what I'm using. I've used both dried and fresh for everything, and I tend to try to use fresh if I can. However, I'm really liking the freeze dried basil. I think its about 1 oz of the dried/freeze-dried individual herbs in general, and another 2 oz or so of the Italian seasoning blend. If you are missing one, no biggie.

San Marzano Tomatoes are important if you can get them, but they are expensive. Don't get ripped off and make sure they actually are San Marzano. I think its required to have an import stamp somewhere on the can, and can only be "Peeled, whole, in their own juices". Do your on research. That being said, you really can use any whole or stewed tomato that claims to be this style, but I do agree with the hype. I've used some of the stuff in boxes, and its fine if you can't get the real stuff.

I've used all forms of garlic in this, and while fresh is best, the jar of pre-diced works well enough.

Why I like this recipe:

First and foremost, like I mentioned, we ate this a lot when I was a kid and I loved it then and still do now. My dad was a super picky eater when I was growing up, and this is one of the things he liked. Also, it makes a ton and I can just freeze the rest in pint containers and eat it for half a year.

Instructions:

1. If you haven't, cook the Italian sausage. I tend to just buy a pack of them, and stick them in the oven and bake the pack of them. You can probably start this at the beginning and toss it in later

2. Dice the Onion(s). Smaller is better in this case

3. In your big pot, sauté the diced onion with oil, salt and pepper. You want it to soften a bit, but it doesn't need a lot. A few minutes towards the end, toss in the garlic and

4. Toss in the red wine into the onions. I originally did this to 'deglaze' the pan before I learned that what I was doing in a non-stick pan doesn't allow for glazing. That being said, the taste was good, so if I have a bottle open, I'll do this. Let it cook down into the onions a bit.

5. If you have a stick blender: Add the cans of tomatoes (including juice) to the pot and get your stick blender. To me this is easier. Blend until reasonably smooth.

   1. If you don't have a stick blender. Blend the tomatoes in your blender (including juice), then add it to the pot. If any gets stuck in the carafe of the blender, rinse it with a little water and just toss it all in. Make sure to mix it with the onions once its in the pot.

   2. It is entirely possible if you aren't using San Marzano tomatoes that you can skip this step. Just check the texture of the tomatoes before hand.

6. Add in the tomato paste. I usually end up filling up the can with water to get it all out.

7. Add everything else. Make sure to add salt and pepper as well. Just toss the pepperoni and sausage into the pot. If you want, you can cut up the pepperoni into smaller chunks.

8. Bring the tomatoes to simmer and cover. You want a little bit of bubbling, but not a lot. Watch out for the bubbles, they shoot burning hot tomatos out at you.

9. Cook on low heat for about 30 minutes, and then taste it. See if it needs anything, especially salt. If you are really hungry, you can eat it now, but more time will be better.

10. I usually cook it for about 2hrs. 1-3 is generally my target depending on how distracted or hungry I am.

11. If you happen to make pasta alongside this (fresh or dried), after the pasta is done cooking, but before you dump the water, grab a 6-8oz ladle full of pasta water and dump it into the pasta sauce. Mix it in and let it cook a bit.

12. You can, if you want, fish out the Italian sausage, pepperoni, and cheese rind. However, I actually like to eat all of them in the sauce myself (Yes, even the cheese rind).

Serving:

Cook your favorite pasta, and just dump some over it, then mix it together with some grated parmesan cheese. My favorite dried pasta is Rotini, though I like it with home made spaghetti (I know, I claim to be lazy, I have a kitchen aid mixer attachment) or cheese ravioli as well. If you like heavy sauce, go heavy, you should have plenty! If you like light, go light! Its up to you. Serve it with some meatballs (I'll post a recipe at some point), Italian sausage (Like the pack you just cooked), and/or bread. Put some sauce on the first two, use the latter to mop up sauce at the end.

Also, you can use this to make lasagna. I've tried it with pizza, but it isn't right for that (in my mind).

Freezing:

Just dump into a pint container that you can seal and put it in the freezer. Seems to last a really long time. Reheating it, I'll microwave it for a minute, stir, then microwave for 30s repeating until it is hot. Note, this WILL stain your plastic.