Italian Meat Sauce

I use this rich tomato based meat sauce for my lasagna and as a pour over sauce for any pasta. It takes about an hour to prepare and I cook my sauce down for 4 to 6 hours to allow all the spices and flavors to blend and for the sauce to thicken up.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 cups washed and sliced button mushrooms
• 3 cups diced yellow onion
• 6 cloves minced garlic
• 1 to 1-1/2 pounds Italian sausage (bulk or removed from links)
• 1 to 1-1/2 pounds extra lean ground beef or ground sirloin
• 2 29 ounce cans tomato sauce
• 2 28 ounce cans crushed tomatoes
• 1 18 ounce can tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons Italian seasonings spice mix
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Steps

• In a 7 quart heavy stock pot or Dutch oven pan (non-stick recommended), add olive oil and heat over medium heat
• Add mushrooms to pot. Stir while cooking until tender (about 5 minutes)
• Add onion and garlic to pot and continue to stir while cooking (about another 5 minutes)
• Remove cooked vegetables from pot to a large glass or metal bowl for temporary storage
• Reduce heat to medium low and add sausage only, to pot. Using 2 plastic spatulas or spoons, crumble sausage while stirring and cooking. When well crumbled, add beef and crumble, stir and cook until meat mixture is just done, not browned (about 10 minutes)
• Add remaining ingredients in order. Using plastic spoon, stir all ingredients until well blended
• Place lid on pot to cover partially only. This will help keep spatters down
• Continue to cook sauce for up to 6 hours, stirring every 15 minutes

Tips

There are few tips that I can give that will help to ensure your success with this sauce:

• The pot - I use a very thick gauge aluminum pot that is coated with a non stick surface. This helps to ensure great heat distribution and will help to minimize any burning of the sauce
• Heat - It is critical with this huge pot of sauce that your heat be kept at a very low point, with only enough heat to keep a slow simmer. You'll know you have it right when you have a small amount of bubbling in the center of the sauce. Keep your lid on the pan but only partially covering the pot
• Stirring - Stir your sauce often. I stir it at least every 15 minutes and I make sure that I scrape the entire bottom of the pot to ensure that I don't allow the sauce to stick and burn

Recipe by Jim Beletti - October, 1998

Back to Top

Back to Entrees

Copyright (C) 1999 J. D. Beletti, All rights reserved

Last revised: November 09, 2004