Made with the simplest of pantry staples, this recipe is easy to whip up when its 4:15, your husband is almost home and you still haven’t decided what you’re making for dinner tonight. Cooking from scratch doesn’t need to be bougie. It doesn’t need to be expensive or lavish. It can be cheap and healthy, and I’ll prove it to you with the sauciest of sauces!

Why You’ll Love This Sauce

I love spaghetti, ever since I was a kid, who doesn’t? Noodles, meat and sauce it’s a classic.
As a family we were mainly gluten free for the last seven years, and in that time I am so happy we found the perfect store bought noodles. Jovial makes the very best gf noodle, they honestly taste the same if not better than regular noodles. They are also organic and glyphosate free so it is a win win! We have been milling our own flour for about 6 months now, but pasta is one of those things I just haven’t gotten to taste as good home made, so for now jovial still takes the cake. I will say I also LOVE this sauce over a spaghetti Squash in the fall.

When it comes to pasta sauce I am sure my label readers will be the first to tell you to look out for seed oils. It seems like one of those unnecessary places they just have to shove the bad stuff, so I figured I’d make my own. I know there’s a few companies out there who have simple ingredients, but pasta sauce is one of those convenience items you may not realize are so much cheaper and easier to make at home, the fact that its healthier + simpler ingredients is just a bonus.

This sauce is a nod to my dad’s that I grew up with, it’s simple and hearty and a nice dose of oil in it adds a thick and warming touch, just what we want when we are eating our weight in carbs!

Ingredients

Canned tomato sauce–Nows your chance to plunder your stored up garden goods and use those canned garden tomatoes, or your favorite store bought ones– we usually use the cheapest organic generic brand thats close to us.

Canned Tomato paste— The combo of sauce and paste makes for an extra rich and hearty sauce for your garlic bread to swim in.

Garlic Powder— can sub for fresh or roasted, I like using this pantry staple as it whips up even faster and I know I always have it on hand. You can’t have spaghetti without garlic

Onion Powder— Again, if you are feeling like stepping up your game feel free to use frsh chopped onions (and maybe some chopped peppers and mushrooms) but when I am making this I am usually trying to be quick and cheap– you get it!

Italian seasoning mix— whatever your favorite brand is, usually consists or oregano, basil, thyme, rosmary etc.

Salt–The beginnings of every recipe of course.

Water- we are going to stretch that saucy goodness for a nice large batch.

Ground meat— We are in a ground turkey budget latley, so that’y what we use, but ground beef, or any other will work just as fine.

High qualilty Olive oil (or avocado oil in a pinch)— This adds such a nice textutre to the sauce. It used to seems strange to me so I would leave it out (my dad always adds it) but one time I was eating his and noticed how much more I liked it– feel free to omit this if its not your thing but trust me, it takes this homemade sauce up a nice cozy notch.

Tools

For this recipe I like to go the one pan route, the same pan I cook up the meat in, I then make the sauce in, that happens to be a cast iron skillet, I know this is controversial in the cast iron world, but I am a bit of a rule breaker in the kitchen. You’ll also want to grab yourself a nice big spoon or spatula for chopping your meat and stirring that goodness.

How to Make the Sauce

cook your meat— Chop and cook your meat, chopping to desired size of meat bits, I like them a bit more small and universal, because we are stretching that sauce for eight people baby!
Drain and season-once the meat is cooked drain and return to pan, here you are going to measure with your heart (or your measuring spoons if you aren’t that brave yet) and add the garlic, onion and italian spices.
add remaning ingredients— Once youve seaosned the meat well you are going to want to add the tomato sauce and paste, as well as 12 oz of water and the 1/4c of oil. give it all a big stir and let the pot do its thing.
simmer– let it cook down and melt all those flavors together for about ten minutes and dish out over your favorite noodles. For this sacue the longer it cooks the better the flavor, if im really on my game I will get it going a couple hours before dinner and let it sit on low on the stove
enjoy! don’t forget the garlic bread!