Essential Italian Herb Pasta Sauce

Oct 23, 2020 | Dishes, Meal Prep

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Every good Italian dish starts with a great sauce, and there’s no better sauce than a fresh one. My Grams and my mom have been working on this Italian herb pasta sauce for years, and it is so incredibly easy to have an amazing fresh and natural pasta sauce made up and kept on hand.

The most impressive thing I noticed about this recipe is that when you rinse out either the plastic bags or Tupperware, there is no residual red/orange stain on the plastic. Really makes you wonder in the store bought stuff, right?

This Italian herb pasta sauce will make enough sauce to feed about 10-12 people. I recommend freezing half to keep on hand for the next pasta dish. Depending on the dish I will add Italian sausage to create a meat sauce. This is completely optional, just make sure you cook the meat before adding it to the sauce. I find that sausage from a local butcher or grocer is the best taste and quality and really makes a difference in the sauce.

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Essential Italian Herb Pasta Sauce

The perfect marinara sauce to be used with noodles, lasagna, or any other pasta dish. This can be a sauce with or without meat
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time6 hours
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: italian, italian herb, marinara, meat sauce, pasta sauce

Equipment

  • Crockpot or large stew pot

Ingredients

  • 1/2 onion finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp minced garlic
  • 1 large carrot peeled and shredded
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 28 oz cans crushed roma tomatoes
  • 12 oz tomato paste
  • 2 tbsp oregano
  • 2 tbsp basil
  • 1 tbsp fennel seeds
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 lb sweet Italian sausage

Instructions

For herb sauce

  • In a medium sized pot, sauté onions, garlic, and carrots in olive oil on medium heat until they are golden and fragrant, about 10 minutes
  • In either a large stew pot or crockpot, add sauteed vegetables, cans of tomatoes, spices, and brown sugar
  • Stir well to combine and cook on low heat for 6 hours
  • Once sauce is cooled, divide out into 3 portions

For sauce with meat

  • Cook italian sausage on the stovetop until it is cooked through. Add one pound of meat to each portioned out section of sauce

Notes

This pasta sauce will create enough for 2-3 pasta dishes. I freeze each portion in gallon bags. Fill each ziplock and lay it flat on a cookie sheet in the freezer so they freeze flat and are easier to store. 
I double this recipe when I make it, and freeze most of it.
When making a meat sauce, only add 1 lb of cooked meat to each frozen portion, not the whole batch. This can be done either before you freeze it or at the time of serving it.

I have used this pasta sauce with ravioli, tortellini, baked eggplant, lasagna, and my favorite, with homemade spaghetti. I make mine with my favorite pasta roller, the Atlas 150, from Marcato. It is incredibly easy to have homemade noodles and truly not as difficult as one might think to make them. Lemme tell you, its worth it to pair fresh noodles with this sauce.

For another tomato masterpiece, try out my homemade tomato basil soup!