This Italian red sauce recipe is from my dear friend Karen, who comes from a big Italian family with fantastic recipes. Another one of their recipes is ‘Mama Filoso’s Chicken Rice Soup’. Anyway, Karen gave this recipe to me a long time ago, but unfortunately it got lost in my big recipe binder and I never made it until last weekend. WOW it was INCREDIBLE–the best marinara sauce I have ever made. This comes together quick and tastes amazing! This is very similar to the 5 Minute Marinara Sauce recipe, but I think better!
According to Karen, this sauce is good on everything from sauteed vegetables like zucchini, or thinly sliced cabbage to any pasta. I am thinking it would be good as a pizza base or to dip your Stromboli or Calzone into. I even thinned the leftover sauce with chicken broth( a little cream would have been good too:) for a quick tomato soup to dip grilled cheese into for lunch. It was great–let me tell you-YUM!
Thank you Karen for another great recipe!
PrintAuthentic Italian Red Sauce
Ingredients
- 3–4 TBsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 4–8 fresh garlic cloves (Karen says she uses 8 or more- I used 6)
- 1 (29oz) can of tomatoes (for a milder sauce add more)
- 1/4 cup tomato paste
- 1/4 cup fresh basil, or as much as you like (I left this out because I didn’t have any)
- 1 tsp Better than Bouillon, beef flavor, or 1 bouillon cube
- Mild cayenne pepper (optional)
Instructions
- Blend up tomatoes until fairly smooth. Put olive oil in the pan with the minced garlic, just until the garlic starts to really sizzle. Do not over cook the garlic. Add tomatoes to the garlic and oil and bring to a simmer. Add tomato paste, bouillon, fresh basil, and cayenne. Bring to a simmer. Let cook a minute or two. This does not need a long time to cook. It will actually lose it’s pungent flavor if you do.
I made this last night for the pizza sauce on our Jack-o-Lantern pepperoni pizzas, and it turned out really yummy. I was impressed! I’ll be making this asap again for dipping calzones and breadsticks. I thought it was fabulous! Oh, and very very fast, too.
I tried this and think it is fabulous. I have so many canned tomatoes and this recipe can be used in a zillion different dishes. I made it as a breadstick dip and will be using it as a lasagna sauce and many other things. Thank you!
How would you use fresh tomatoes instead of canned?
Congratulations, Tara!! Hope you enjoy the cookbook. 🙂
I emailed my address yesterday and just got an email back saying it has been delayed. Not sure what that means but hopefully you get it soon. 🙂 BTW I used the email address: contact@sisterscafe.com
This sounds a lot like Pomodoro Sauce~yummy!
Oh, you told me about this recipe. I am excited to try it out, Mel!
This is a great recipe to have on hand!