Low Calorie Basic Marinara Sauce...Add Meat For Spaghetti Meat Sauce...yum!

6 ingredients make basic marinara sauce
Virgin olive oil
Chopped fresh onion and chopped fresh garlic
Fresh or canned chopped tomatoes
Tomato sauce amount determined by how much sauce you want
Dry oregano

Method
I use my favorite pot to make this sauce, this pot is a cross between a wok, a deep fat fryer, and a stew pot. You will need a similiar sauce pot.

Add 3 TB virgin olive oil in pot you are using for this recipe.
Add a half medium yellow onion, chopped.
Add to pot fresh chopped garlic; 8 to 12 pieces.

Sauté the onion and garlic over medium to low heat until tender and a light yellow color.

Add chopped tomatoes to the pot; fresh or canned.
Add some dry oregano at this time as much or as little as you like in your sauce.
If oregano is not fine enough you can grind it down in your hand using the edge of your other hand as the tool to reduce the oregano to a fine dust, and at the same time you will release flavor from the herb that will impart into the sauce.. Dry oregano has that old time taste from the pizza parlor where they use the dry Herb in place of fresh. I guess I like that old time pizza parlor flavor.

Add either an 8-ounce can or a 15-ounce can of tomato sauce, depending on how much sauce you are making. Bring all of the ingredients in the pot to a medium gentle simmer, and then turn down the heat to low so the sauce simmers very low.

You should add a cover to your pot now so the sauce, which is getting thick in consistency, doesn't splash onto your stove
Simmer sauce for app. 20 minutes

You can sauté washed, fresh mushroom slices to the pot with your onion and garlic, and you can also add washed, chopped fresh bell peppers too, red, green and or yellow depending on what you prefer or use all three colors for a colorful sauce!

Your Marinara Sauce is now ready to pour onto your cooked pasta or precooked ravioli either the frozen or fresh variety of ravioli.

To turn this Marinara Sauce into a Speghetti Meat Sauce just add your favorite ground beef, ground chicken or ground turkey to the onion, garlic, and any other vegetables you are putting into the sauce after the vegetables have softened up a bit.
Cook the meat with the vegetables throughly before you add the tomatoes and the tomato sauce.

My favorite ground beef to use in recipes is a grass fed ground beef that I purchase here in Hollister. Grass fed beef has a better flavor than beef that is raised in fed lots, and it is actually a better choice for health reasons.

When making a meat sauce you may want to simmer it on low longer than you do for the meatless Marinara Sauce but it really isn't necessary to cook Spaghetti Meat Sauce a super long time. I remember in the 'old days' cooks would simmer marinara for hours.
Most people who haven't made sauce before, are surprised that you can cook homemade sauce up as fast as it does cook up.

Enjoy!

Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra


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