Best Ever Spaghetti Sauce Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to the best spaghetti? ›

For best flavor, use certified San Marzano tomatoes. Add Parmesan cheese into the sauce while cooking. Use no salt added tomatoes. Use ground beef to cut down on sodium content.

Olives and capers add a punch of briny goodness and give tomato sauce some real personality. Toss in some chopped or whole, pitted olives and/or a handful of drained capers after heating the sauce for several minutes. Or, if you're adding garlic or sautéed vegetables, add to the sauté just before you pour in the sauce.

What is in your spaghetti sauce that makes it taste so deliciously authentic? Tomatoes (canned or fresh), garlic, onions, olive oil, herbs (such as basil and oregano), and sometimes red wine. The flavors develop through slow cooking, which allows the ingredients to meld together and create a rich and savory taste.

You make foods richer by adding fat to them. For a tomato sauce you could begin include bacon, pancetta, sausage or another meat to the sauce. I like to braise beef shanks in tomato sauce, shred the tender meat and mix it into the sauce. You could also simmer beef or chicken bones in the stock as if making a stock.

Tomatoes is the most popular ingredient in spaghetti sauce dishes. In fact, over 90% of spaghetti sauce recipes contain tomatoes. Variations of tomatoes include: tomato sauce: 15% of recipes.

Once the pasta is in the sauce, add pasta water. This is the most vital step in the process. Starchy pasta water doesn't just help thin the sauce to the right consistency; it also helps it cling to the pasta better and emulsify with the fat and cheese you're going to be adding.

Flat or bland sauce likely needs a hit of something acidic to lift and enhance its flavors, such as a small splash of high-quality, flavorful vinegar, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, or a few drops of not-too-fiery hot sauce.

Approximately three dashes or ¼ teaspoon of nutmeg is plenty for a jar of tomato sauce. If you are making a large batch, add a bit more for good measure. While the flavor should be subtle, you still want it to make the other ingredients shine, so feel free to play around with the quantity until you get it just right.

How do you fix bland spaghetti sauce? ›

You can add a splash of vinegar, lemon juice, or wine. Add some sweetness. Sweetness can also help to balance out the flavors in your sauce. You can add a pinch of sugar, a splash of honey, or a few grated carrots.

You can simmer tomato sauce for hours on a low simmer. Stir it often so it doesn't burn. The longer you simmer the sauce the more depth and flavor it will have. Use a heavy duty sauce pot and simmer on low.

But when you cook something longer and let it reduce, the liquid that evaporates doesn't carry much of the flavor with it--so you've got more flavor left in the resulting dish.

Time Is a Valuable Ingredient

But you should consider simmering for three or more hours, letting it lazily cook away, no more than a few straggling bubbles surfacing at a time. Time plus low heat and fresh ingredients make for a great sauce.