What is your go to red sauce for pasta?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cover a baking sheet with foil, spread olive oil and coat the foil. Cover the sheet with quartered red peppers, a head of garlic and halved tomatoes. Bake until soft. Put the veggies in a blender and pureed adding chopped or chiffonade of basil and oregano at the end. If you want, you can reheat the puree over the stove or in the microwave briefly, pour over pasta.

I make this as a soup, but many people have commented that it would go wonderfully over ravioli and in your case, shells.

This sounds really good. How many peppers and tomatoes do you use?

It varies, but this is a good starter. You'll have to decide what flavors you like more and add more of them. Ballpark, 3-4 medium to large red peppers to one full head of garlic to about 4-6 medium to large tomatoes. when I can get them, the medium size Campari tomatoes are the best (6 of those work wonderfully). Add about a small handful of basil and about 5-6 stalks of oregano, pulling the leaves off the stalks. That's ballpark what I use. But it varies every time.

FYI, when I said 3-4 medium to large, the bigger they are, the more likely you use 3, the smaller they are, the more likely you use 4.

Thanks -- I will try it soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine's on the stove. I make meatballs from pork/beef/veal, fry them up with a couple cut up hot sausages then run 5 cans of whole peeled tomatoes through the food processor. I add a whole onion, a half cup of wine, a bay leaf, salt & pepper, a little of the oil and garlic from frying the meatballs a pinch of sugar. Bring it to a boil and let it cook for a couple of hours. Add a little fresh basil at the end. Portion it out, wait for it to cool and freeze.

This is more or less the recipe from my italian grandmother and enough for 5 or 6 meals.

It's messy but so worth it on a weeknight.

You had me until "boil." Simmer - yes. Boil? Boil = burn.

That said, this pretty much how I make mine - I may use a little paste as well. I also make turkey meatballs sometime, or vegetarian. There simply is no reason to use jarred sauce. Ever. Especially those of you who "doctor it up" - tomato sauce is just doctored up tomatoes. You're basically saying that you want all the crap they put in jarred sauce. Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does no one use Prego or Ragu anymore?

They're bottom of the barrel as far as jarred sauces go, IMO. Wegmans brand, Newman's Own, Classico, Barilla and Rao's are all MUCH better.

[Anonymous]

I'm the one who posted the roasted red pepper and tomato sauce. My back-up sauce which we keep in the pantry is Classico Tomato and Basil sauce. It's on our shelf because my wife is currently in her 13th years since losing a LOT of weight and one of the things we both do to keep our weight down is cut back on calories and sugars. This sauce has the lowest calories per portion and lowest sugars of most jarred sauces and is the one at the low end of both that we both like. I usually doctor it up when I use it, but we've occasionally used it straight.

[Anonymous]

We love Victoria brand sauces, available at Giant and Safeway; very much like homemade.

[Anonymous]

I like Ragu! The one w/ garlic and onions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does no one use Prego or Ragu anymore?

They're bottom of the barrel as far as jarred sauces go, IMO. Wegmans brand, Newman's Own, Classico, Barilla and Rao's are all MUCH better.

Yeah. I don't ever make my own, but I don't get Ragu either-- I rotate between Newman's, Classico and Barilla depending on sales and mood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rao for everyday meals

Too expensive for everyday meals. I go with a simple jarred sauce (Newman's, Barilla) and doctor it up with a little red wine, extra garlic, EVOO, or maybe parm or romano cheese.

I should have said that Rao's is for a weeknight meal when I don't make a homemade slow-simmer sauce (similar to one PP posted, from my Italian grandmother). I also do a quick fresh tomato sauce recipe in the summer. But that wouldn't be good for baked ziti or stuffed shells.

One of the 365 brand flavors is pretty good, but I can't remember which.

[Anonymous]

I rotate between Classico or Whole Foods or Newman depending on what I'm doing with it, but when I make it myself, I make one of these:

The Marcella Hazan super-easy recipe (but so good): http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2010/01/tomato-sauce-with-butter-and-onions/

Another Marcella Hazan recipe, this one with mirepoix and cream: http://www.marthastewart.com/315281/tomato-sauce-with-heavy-cream

A wacky recipe that uses cilantro and chili (it's close to this): http://www.recipelion.com/article_pdf/27/42/Southwest-Cowboy-Stuffed-Shells.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine's on the stove. I make meatballs from pork/beef/veal, fry them up with a couple cut up hot sausages then run 5 cans of whole peeled tomatoes through the food processor. I add a whole onion, a half cup of wine, a bay leaf, salt & pepper, a little of the oil and garlic from frying the meatballs a pinch of sugar. Bring it to a boil and let it cook for a couple of hours. Add a little fresh basil at the end. Portion it out, wait for it to cool and freeze.

This is more or less the recipe from my italian grandmother and enough for 5 or 6 meals.

It's messy but so worth it on a weeknight.



You had me until "boil." Simmer - yes. Boil? Boil = burn.

That said, this pretty much how I make mine - I may use a little paste as well. I also make turkey meatballs sometime, or vegetarian.

I'm pretty sure PP meant simmer. If you boil that sauce, it would blurt all over the kitchen walls. You'd probably end up injured and much of your sauce would escape the pot.

I also didn't mention earlier that I don't do the food processor part. I just smash the canned tomatoes up with a wooden spoon as it cooks. I don't do quite that big a quantity; just what fits in my 12" cast iron. (I know all the cookbooks say for tomato sauce, use a nonreactive pot like stainless. But Clemenza did it in cast iron, so I do too.)

Someday I'm going to try slicing the garlic with a razor blade, like Paul Sorvino in Goodfellas, to see if it really does liquefy in hot oil like Ray Liotta said.

--first Clemenza poster

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I use this sauce for my stuffed shells:

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/smoky-marinara-10000000428924/

Any idea if this one freezes well?

Yes. It from a Cooking Light stuffed shells recipe that makes enough for two batches, one to eat now and one to freeze. The shells freeze beautifully, too.

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/four-cheese-stuffed-shells-with-smoky-marinara-10000000428921/

[Anonymous]

It's

[Anonymous]

For quick nights I use Ragu marinara and if I am making a major meal I make it myself how my mom taught me... using canned tomatoes, garlic, onion,cheese and 1 tsp sugar...maybe throw some meatballs in.

[Anonymous]

I sauté garlic and onions in olive oil, add canned crushed tomatoes and fresh herbs and simmer. Very simple and basic. Will have to try some of these other ideas.

[Anonymous]

Rao's is on sale at Target!