I’m not crazy about red sauce — pizza, spaghetti, lasagna . . you’ll never see me ordering that off a menu but Chad and Vince love it. Vince’s parents were immigrants from Sicily and they had spaghetti & meatballs every Sunday so that’s a tradition I’ve tried to continue.
I came across this spaghetti sauce recipe last week and tried it today and I tell you . . I may like spaghetti now. I changed a few things so I’ll share the recipe as it ended up in my pot. This is so good! I’m going to try to make it in big batches and can it when I can get tomatoes in quantity at the Amish store. When I can it, I’ll leave off the Italian sausage til serving time.
Garden Fresh Spaghetti Sauce
1 lb. Italian sausage
1 onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped (I use the already chopped garlic in the big plastic jars from Sam’s)
12 fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes (I used 3 quart jars of home canned tomatoes)
3 zucchini, sliced (I chopped mine pretty fine so Chad wouldn’t see them in there)
1 lb. mushrooms, sliced (chopped fine to disguise also)
4 carrots, shredded
2 T. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. parsley, chopped
1/3 c. fresh basil, chopped
1 c. dry red wine (I used Shiraz because it was handy)
Remove casings from the Italian sausage (if yours has casings). Chop into chunks and brown. Drain any excess grease but leave a couple of teaspoons. Add the onions, green pepper, garlic and saute til the onions are clear.
Add the tomatoes, wine, sugar, salt, parsley, basil. Simmer for about an hour.
Add the shredded carrots, zucchini and mushrooms. At this point, I added meatballs that were already browned. Continue to simmer for another 20 minutes.
Serve over spaghetti noodles with salad and crusty bread.
Judy says
My great grandfather was an immigrant from Sicily. I remember asking him if we were Italian–big mistake!–we are Sicilian! One of my fondest memories of Grampa Great.
Your sauce looks delicious! I always make a mumbo jumbo batch of spag. sauce, a must have for the freezer.
Another Linda says
good! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
AnnieO says
Hey Judy, where’s the beef?
JudyL says
Meatballs were added with the last step.
Perry says
Everything sounds delish except for the zucchini, but I notice you failed to mention when you used it, so I am hoping that that doesn’t matter to the taste, lol. Am making a copy for future. Thanks for sharing this. Funny thing about carrots, I add them to the meat sauce I make for lasagna.
JudyL says
Zucchini goes in with the carrots and mushrooms. (I fixed it . . I had forgotten to include it). You can just leave it out without any problems I’m sure.
Eileen Keane says
I had a friend when I was in HS whose family came to the US when she was 3 from Sicily. Her mom made the “gravy” on Saturday, left it on the stove overnight. Sunday morning, first thing, she added the “pig meat”(sausage, pork chops, ribs) and it cooked all day. About an hour before dinner, which was at 3pm on Sundays, she added the meatballs. They were almost tennis ball sized!! Thanks for the memories of those dinners. I was invited often because her mom felt sorry for me since I had lost my Dad a couple of years earlier and my Mom worked nights. I was mostly alone(only child)on Sundays.
My sauce is much simpler than yours. No veggies, but I do have crushed red pepper in mine. Yours is a great way to get the veggies into kids/husbands who don’t want to eat them.
Karen says
Judy, this sounds yummy. I can’t wait to try it. Thanks for sharing.
By the way, if you’re ever in a town with a Dewey’s restaurant they have the best pizza – you can get their pizzas with olive oil instead of tomato sauce.
Donna says
Looks great, is your meatball recipe on-line somewhere? I love meatballs and spaghetti and make my own sauce, sadly from cans, but the kids like it. I think I will try yours for my husband and me. 🙂 Thanks
Rose H says
I’m going to try your recipe with the zucchini and carrots. Hubby dislikes zucchini but I do like it. If I chop it fine he won’t recognize the zucchini. I couldn’t eat spaghetti for many years as when hubby would brew up a batch of sauce while I was at work (he worked shift work) when I was pregnant with our son (51 years ago) the smell of spaghetti sauce cooking immediately sent me to the bathroom. Didn’t have morning sickness; I got sick in evening after I got home from work. It took me more than 20 years to get that smell out of my brain and finally eat spaghetti again. No other food/smell bothered me, just the sauce stewing (wierd, I know). No sickness when pregnant with our daughter; only had heartburn for several months with her. I used to cook spaghetti for the family but ate a sandwich or just a hamburger patty until I could finally stomach eating like the rest of the family. Thanks for sharing the recipes.
Cynthia H., El Cerrito, CA says
Whenever I’ve needed to disguise a veggie (DH doesn’t like green bell peppers, so I use red bells), I put them through the food processor with the “shred” blade. Then they get sauteed in the pan, and if I’m making chili or pasta sauce, the rest of the ingredients go in after the bell-pepper saute.
The shreds of bell pepper just disappear into the texture of the sauce. I also do this with other, less “DH-objectionable” veggies, when we just like the texture of them, e.g., shredded mushrooms.
June Piper-Brandon says
This looks really yummy. I drove by the farmers market this morning and they were loaded with fresh tomatoes. I think I’ll stop there tomorrow and get some tomatoes to put down. I am not fond of tomato sauce either, we order greek pizza with tzaziki (sp?) sauce in place of tomato sauce, feta, gyro, fresh tomatoes, spinach, onion and cheese.