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Serves
a batallion of folks
Author Notes
This sauce is perfect when you want something unfussy and simple. It's just the thing when you don't want your pizza toppings overshadowed by the red sauce (or brought low by the overly-sweet store-bought varieties) or when the meatballs should be the star of the show. As you can imagine, I use it on pizzas, with meatballs, chicken parm, subs and anything else that requires a basic (yet awesome) red sauce. Throw it together in a few minutes then let it simmer on low all day. You're house will smell amazing and it keeps well in the freezer - saving you work on another, more hectic weekend. This makes a whole mess of red sauce. Feel free to scale down but really, it's just as easy to put up enough for future use. H/T to Marcella Hazan for teaching me (and the world) about the glories of butter in a tomato sauce... —Niknud
Ingredients
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1/3 cup
olive oil
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1
medium yellow onion, small diced
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4
cloves garlic, minced
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5
28-oz cans crushed tomatoes (best you can find)
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2-3 tablespoons
butter (or whatever end is left in your butter drawer)
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1 cup
red wine
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1 tablespoon
each fresh rosemary, thyme and oregano, minced
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1 teaspoon
red pepper flakes
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1 teaspoon
fennel seeds (crushed)
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kosher salt and pepper to taste
Directions
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In a large (large!) pot, heat up the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion until translucent - about five minutes. Add the crushed garlic and cook for another minute. Add the red wine and cook down until almost all the liquid is gone (about a 1/4 cup remains).
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Add the butter, tomatoes and all the seasonings. When the mixture starts to bubble, turn the heat down low and simmer for as long as you like - I recommend a minimum of 4 hours. If it gets a little tight, feel free to add a splash of water or some more wine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Full-time working wife and mother of two small boys whose obsessive need to cook delicious food is threatening to take over what little free time I have. I grew up in a family of serious cookers but didn't learn to cook myself until I got married and got out of the military and discovered the joys of micro-graters, ethiopian food, immersion blenders and watching my husband roll around on the floor after four servings of pulled pork tamales (with real lard!) complaining that he's so full he can't feel his legs. Trying to graduate from novice cooker to ranked amateur. The days of 'the biscuit incident of aught five' as my husband refers to it are long past but I still haven't tried my hand at paella so I'm a work in progress!
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