My Homemade Cherry Tomato Pasta Sauce – How to make this easy sauce

I love making pasta sauce! Usually, my sauces are just marinara, with ground meat, or sometimes “red” sauce without meat. My husband prefers sauces made with ground meat to meatballs or Italian sausage, but I like them all! I had some cherry tomatoes purchased at the local market which sat just a bit too long – so I decided to vary my “old standby” recipe for pasta sauce and use them. Here’s my recipe for the sauce – and if I do say so, the finished product was quite tasty – savory with a nice texture from the little tomatoes cooking down along with the other ingredients.

To make the sauce, you will need:

• About 2 cups cherry tomatoes – it’s okay if the skins are getting wrinkly!
• olive oil – maybe 2 Tbsp – possibly a bit more
• 3-4 large cloves of garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 whole medium onion, chopped fine
• 2 Tbsp dried parsley, or about 1/2 – 3/4 cup fresh parsley, minced
• 1 rounded tsp of dried basil
• 1 rounded tsp of dried oregano
• 1/2 – 3/4 pound lean ground beef
• 1 – 15-16 oz. can tomato sauce (your favorite brand) – you can use plain tomato sauce, or the kind that has garlic or herbs added. They will all work well for this simple sauce.
• Approximately 15-16 oz. of water (amount roughly equal to the volume of the can of tomato sauce)
• Approximately 1/2 tsp salt (more or less to taste) – start with 1/4 tsp and add more after tasting, if needed.
• Approximately 1/2 tsp pepper (more or less to taste) – again, start with the smaller amount – 1/4 tsp – and add more if needed.
• About 2 Tbsp sugar – more or less to your taste. Start with 1 Tbsp, and add more if the sauce still has an acid “bite.” Add small increments, not the entire second tablespoon at once – you want a rich, flavorful sauce, but not dessert!

Optional but super tasty additions:

• 1-2 sweet Italian sausages
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms

Note: I used all of the optional ingredients in my sauce, because I love Italian sausage and my husband I are both partial to mushrooms. If you don’t like one of the optional ingredients, it’s fine to leave them out. And – if you are vegetarian, this sauce will turn out just as nicely without the ground beef, also. If you’re going to make it meatless, I’d suggest using a large onion, rather than a medium one.

Here’s what to do:

• Put the olive oil in a large (more or less) saute or frying pan. I used a 12 inch diameter pan, but the sauce would also work well in a 10 inch diameter pan, too. Heat the oil in the pan.
• Add the washed cherry tomatoes to the pan, turn the heat down to medium, and saute the tomatoes until they “pop” – or you can gauge their readiness by whether they are browning a bit, or the color is changing a little. I helped mine along by exerting gentle pressure on the cooking tomatoes with a wooden spoon – breaking the skins so the juice could start to cook a bit. After a few minutes of cooking, add the chopped garlic and continue to saute. You may need to further reduce the heat so nothing burns!
• When the tomatoes are getting soft and the skins are breaking apart, add the chopped onion and cook all this until everything seems pretty soft (the onions will change color a bit and have that glazed surface).

• Next, add the other ingredients – the ground beef, oregano, basil, and parsley, and cook until the ground beef is cooked through. Stir often. You may need to add a bit more oil to ensure nothing sticks. If you’re using sliced fresh mushrooms, add them now and saute a bit also.
• Once everything has cooked a bit and the flavors are blending, the aroma should be wafting through the kitchen and into the house. Now’s the time to add your liquid.
• Add the can of tomato sauce and mix it in – then cook it a bit. Not a lot – just a minute or two!
• Fill the can with water and add that to your sauce mix. Stir well.
• Now, let the sauce come to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. You can put a lid on the pot for now, but check frequently and stir to make sure it’s not sticking or burning.
• After about 40 minutes, check your sauce and add 1 Tbsp of sugar. Stir well and taste. If the sauce still tastes a bit “sour,” or if it has an acid “bite,” you’ll want to add a bit more sugar. Most of the time, I use two Tbsp, more or less, in a pot of pasta sauce this size. Cover and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until all the vegetables and the tomatoes have cooked down and made “sauce” rather than a mix of separate veggies.
• Add the salt and pepper and stir well. I would start with a little less than the amount specified, taste, and adjust. That way, it won’t be too salty or too peppery. It’s much easier to add more, since it’s pretty much impossible to take it out once it’s in the mix.
• If the sauce is too “loose,” i.e. watery, not thick enough, just remove the lid and cook gently (lightly bubbling) until it thickens.

Additional notes:

1. Depending on the leanness of your ground meat, and how much olive oil you used, there may be some fat (oil) floating on the surface of your sauce. Feel free to skim it off with a spoon or other type of grease skimmer to reduce the overall oiliness and fat content. Once the sauce is finished, having removed it won’t affect the taste and will probably improve it to skim some off.
2. Cooking time will vary, depending on the tomato variety. Some have tougher skins and take longer to get nice and soft and integrate into the sauce.
3. This recipe calls for canned tomato sauce, rather than tomato paste. I use tomato sauce more often than tomato paste. You could, of course, use tomato paste. I have not included instructions for making this sauce with paste – but if you prefer it, and know how to adjust the liquid, etc., I see no reason why it couldn’t be used instead of canned tomato sauce.
4. This sauce is great over regular spaghetti, thin spaghetti, vermicelli, or even capellini (angel hair – our favorite). It also works well over pasta substitutes, like zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash, if you’re watching your carbs or eating a keto diet. (This sauce is not truly keto, because it contains sugar and tomatoes. I believe you can eat a bit of tomato on keto, but not sugar – and maybe not too much tomato either.)

Notes about the Italian sausage:
You’ll notice I didn’t include any directions regarding the Italian sausage. Most often, Italian sausage (the sweet variety) is sold raw, so it needs to be cooked. I chose two sausages (about 6 inches long) for my sauce, put them in a separate pan, and browned them thoroughly on all sides. This took a bit of time but I love the flavor they add to the sauce! Once they were well-browned, and nearly cooked through, I cut each sausage into 4 segments and added the segments to the sauce right after I added the liquids. By browning it well, you can be sure it’s close to being completely cooked, and then the sausage cooks the rest of the way in the sauce, adding its flavor to the mix.

I hope you like the recipe! If you make it, please comment below and tell us what you thought!