JeetYet's Pasta Sauce
Great over pasta, with braciole, and even as a pizza sauce. For braciole and pizza, I don't include the sausage.
Great over pasta, with braciole, and even as a pizza sauce. For braciole and pizza, I don't include the sausage.
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
- 2 cloves garlic crushed
- 1 teaspoon italian seasoning
- 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seed crushed
- 1/2 cup minced onion
- 1 pound hot sausage
- 1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
- 2 (6 oz.) cans tomato paste
- 2 (6.5 oz.) cans tomato sauce
- Carbohydrate 21.7893592123409 g
- Cholesterol 40.8233133 mg
- Fat 15.6495252034375 g
- Fiber 4.71079889172881 g
- Protein 12.9167813330958 g
- Saturated Fat 5.08944974553558 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (277g)
- Sodium 1071.00130715544 mg
- Sugar 17.0785603206121 g
- Trans Fat 1.5207161619691 g
- Calories 267 calories
Step-by-step
- In a large pot (or a Dutch oven), cook the sausage, onion, and garlic over medium heat until sausage is well browned and onion is translucent.
- Stir in the remaining ingredients and bring up to a low boil, stirring often.
- Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
Crushed fennel seed does more heavy lifting in this sauce than any other single component, releasing volatile aromatic oils into the rendered pork fat as the aromatics sweat. Without this botanical element, the profile shifts from a complex, sausage-forward Italian-American red sauce into a generic tomato puree. Crushing the seeds manually with the flat side of a chef knife just before dropping them into the pot shatters the outer hull, releasing essential compounds that pre-ground spices lose months prior.
Simmering tomato sauce for 90 minutes drives off excess moisture while caramelizing the natural sugars present in both the tomato paste and the minced onions. Maintaining a low, steady bubble rather than a vigorous boil prevents scorching the bottom of the pot, an essential precaution when tomato solids concentrate and thicken. Heavy-bottomed Dutch ovens distribute thermal energy uniformly across the base, eliminating hotspots; if cooking in a standard thin-walled pot, reduce the heat setting slightly and stir every ten minutes.
Altering the primary protein base requires mindful adjustments to the fat-to-liquid ratio. Replacing the hot pork sausage with lean ground turkey eliminates essential rendered fats, demanding an extra tablespoon of olive oil added to the pot during the initial onion sauté to achieve equivalent mouthfeel. Omitting the meat entirely transforms the application into a lighter base suited for pizza dough, where excess moisture leads to soggy crusts. Simmering uncovered for the final 30 minutes of the cooking window reduces water content sufficiently for dough applications without burning the dissolved sugars.
