Recipe: Hearty Italian Sausage Spaghetti Sauce

This recipe will make a whole pot of sauce. I like to divvy it up into smaller packages to freeze them so I can come home after draining day at work and have a delicious spaghetti dinner in only about fifteen minutes. I have a separate recipe for decadent Italian Parmesano meatballs that ooze Parmesan cheese, and I freeze those in individual meal size packages, too.

You can make this recipe with less than thirty minutes of actual kitchen activity and then a couple hours of simmering. I usually make it while watching a game -- in other words, it's time I would have completely wasted sitting on the couch. Now I spend a little time watching the game from the kitchen, and then I sit on the couch and watch the game while the sauce simmers, with the knowledge that I'm being productive! By the way, it makes the house spell delicious, too.

When you come home too tired to do anything, you'll be happy that you have a great meal in your freezer.

2 28 oz cans diced tomatoes
2 28 oz cans tomato sauce
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 can chopped olives (optional)

1 tbsp chopped garlic
1/3 yellow onion  sliced
1/2 lb (8 oz) fresh mushrooms
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb ground Italian sausage

1 tbsp oregano
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
chopped fresh basil

2 cups water


To get started, cut up the fresh veggies: cut up the onion and chop up the basil.

The size of onions varies widely, but you should be looking for about a 1/2 cup of onions after cutting.

For the basil, I usually buy the 0.66 oz package (18g) at the supermarket, and I use half of it for this recipe, which will yield about 1/4 cup of chopped basil when packed pretty well.

Start the sauce;
In a stewpot or crock pot, pour in:

• diced tomotoes
• tomato sauce
• tomato paste
• olives
• chopped fresh basil
• oregano
• red pepper flakes

Turn on low heat. Stir. Continue simmering

Saute other veggies:

In a medium frying pan, add olive oil and warm on medium heat.  Add in:

• mushrooms
• sliced onions
• garlic

Cook for 5-7 minutes, until the mushrooms and onions are soft. Add to sauce.

Cook sausage:

Using the same frying pan that you used for saute (fewer dishes to wash, right?), cook the sausage until brown. Break it up into crumbles as you cook it. It will take about five minutes for the sausage to brown and there won't be much grease to pour off. Add the meat to your pot of sauce.

Stir well.

Now, add the water and let it simmer for a couple hours.  Just stir it occasionally...maybe every half hour or so.