1/3 cup olive oil
5 cloves garlic, not chopped
1 onion, cut in half
1/2 a carrot, not chopped

Heat oil in saucepan on medium, add garlic and onion cut side down. Cook until garlic and onion are light golden brown. Add 2 cans SM tomatoes and some salt. Bring to simmer. After 2 hrs, scoop out the onion halves and the carrot. Keep simmering longer or enjoy. Add more salt.

My family makes a variation on what others have posted - we add hot Italian sausage and ALWAYS prepare the sauce a day in advance.

Start by pinching the sausage into small balls (removing the casing) and cook until brown. Then remove sausage and add 1-2 Tbsp olive oil to pan. Saute one medium chopped white onion with one chopped green pepper (you can also add mushrooms) until soft, then add minced garlic (like 6 cloves). Add 1 Tbsp chopped fresh basil and/or oregano if you have on hand. Once vegetables are cooked, add one 28 oz can crushed tomatoes and two 14 oz cans of tomato sauce, plus one small can tomato paste. Simmer ~5 min, then return Italian sausage (and meatballs if you're making them) to the pot. Simmer another 30 min or so.

Then - put the pot in the fridge overnight. This is the most important step. The sauce tastes much better after resting overnight. Reheat it on the stove the next day for 30-45 minutes.

I do variations of this with different meats and no carrots. I think the carrot makes the sauce too sweet.

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/sunday-sauce

My go-to recipe for meatballs is Betty Crocker classic meatballs https://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/classic-meatballs/2959910f-1b27-438a-9085-d40b1950db20.
You bake them, which makes them super easy. My family loves them. Also, I always double the recipe (and using like 2.5 pounds of ground beef to doubled quantities of everything else works fine)
I don’t use a recipe for sauce. I put maybe 1/4 cup of olive oil in my biggest Dutch oven pan, sauté 2 large yellow onions that I have diced, until nice and soft, add maybe 3 cloves of garlic, minced, cook for another mi Ute, then add two big cans (28 oz size) of San Mazano tomatoes. I like to use a can of whole and a can of crushed, but it really doesn’t matter. Once it is warm I use my immersion blender to blend everything fairly smooth. Then I add some salt, maybe a teaspoon of sugar, and maybe a tablespoon of soy sauce. I know, strange, but my family loves my sauce. Then I turn it so a simmer, partially cover it to prevent too much splatter, and let it go for like 3 hours. Stir it about every 30 minutes, assess whether the simmer seems too low, too high. Taste to see if it needs more salt
Also, once the meatballs are done cooking I gently drop them in the sauce and let them cook in it.
I find the most important thing is to let it cook a long time. Gets so thick and sweet and delicious!

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there any Italians on this board? My 100% authentic Italian friends call their tomato sauce " gravy" and it is an all afternoon ordeal making it. Anyone authentic want to weigh in?

Italians would argue that Italian-American food - i.e., gravy (itself a New Jersey-ism) is not "100% authentic Italian food." Americans forget that Italy is a relatively new country made up of 20 regions all with their own version of sauce. Most Italian-Italians do not use as much garlic or serve pasta with meatballs, in certain regions garlic and onions aren't used together, etc. These are American inventions. Marcella Hazan's sauce is Northern and lighter, and my go-to. For an Italian-American style, I like Lynne Rossetto Kasper's: https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2000/12/12/classic-italian-tomato-sauce.

Anonymous wrote:Well, which pasta sauce are we talking about?
Bolognese?
Only one way to make it. Chopped onion, carrots and celery.
Sautee and add spices your like, half ground beef and ground pork, season as you like. Passata then, best, highest quality Italian passata you can find. I add one small can of tomato pasta, adds a ton of flavor).
Make sure all meat is separated and no clumpy. Then book on low heat, and cook and cook and cook, add some water if needed. 2, 3 hours, add red wine. Cook longer than 3 hours if you have time.
It is kind of like chilly in that way, longer you cook it better it is.

Though, most taste buds lacking people here will not be able to tell the difference. I have no idea what this gravy you called is in Italian. Sauce, pasta sauce, this pasta sauce, and that pasta sauce.
Now for carbonara, naturally Pecorino Romano and eggs and some pepper, takes no time at all, guanciale and the fat from it. Do not add olive oil to caccio e peppe, please don't.

Thanks so much. This sounds delicious.

We made carbonara last weekend. I recently got a kitchen aid and a pasta attachment so we are going a little nuts on pasta. Homemade fresh pasta is miles better than the box stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there any Italians on this board? My 100% authentic Italian friends call their tomato sauce " gravy" and it is an all afternoon ordeal making it. Anyone authentic want to weigh in?

This is how my mom makes it. She makes the meatballs, puts them into the gravy raw, plus sausage, and braciole. Cooks for hours. She serves the meat separately, puts extra gravy on the table, and tosses the homemade pasta with gravy and serves it in a large dish with Romano.

I don’t have time for that. I make more a sauce. It’s delicious but lighter, quicker and very fresh tasting as it has lots of basil and garlic. I make my meatballs separately. Fry in olive oil. There are many ways to do things. Not all Italian Americans make it the same

And by now, many Italian Americans are diluted and have other cooking influences.

Thank you!

Well, which pasta sauce are we talking about?
Bolognese?
Only one way to make it. Chopped onion, carrots and celery.
Sautee and add spices your like, half ground beef and ground pork, season as you like. Passata then, best, highest quality Italian passata you can find. I add one small can of tomato pasta, adds a ton of flavor).
Make sure all meat is separated and no clumpy. Then book on low heat, and cook and cook and cook, add some water if needed. 2, 3 hours, add red wine. Cook longer than 3 hours if you have time.
It is kind of like chilly in that way, longer you cook it better it is.

Though, most taste buds lacking people here will not be able to tell the difference. I have no idea what this gravy you called is in Italian. Sauce, pasta sauce, this pasta sauce, and that pasta sauce.
Now for carbonara, naturally Pecorino Romano and eggs and some pepper, takes no time at all, guanciale and the fat from it. Do not add olive oil to caccio e peppe, please don't.

I like making vegetable pasta.

Brown two peppers, one onion, and carrots in olive oil. Add a jar of tomato puree (the kind with nothing added but perhaps a bit of salt like mutti in a jar, or the kind that comes in a tetrabrik, forget the brand name.) Add basil, oregano, salt and pepper, simmer while pasta is being made, voila, vegetable pasta.

The key here is the tomato puree. Almost all those prepared sauces have added sugar, which is gross and unnecessary and turns sauce into ketchup. The carrots add plenty of sweetness.

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there any Italians on this board? My 100% authentic Italian friends call their tomato sauce " gravy" and it is an all afternoon ordeal making it. Anyone authentic want to weigh in?

This is how my mom makes it. She makes the meatballs, puts them into the gravy raw, plus sausage, and braciole. Cooks for hours. She serves the meat separately, puts extra gravy on the table, and tosses the homemade pasta with gravy and serves it in a large dish with Romano.

I don’t have time for that. I make more a sauce. It’s delicious but lighter, quicker and very fresh tasting as it has lots of basil and garlic. I make my meatballs separately. Fry in olive oil. There are many ways to do things. Not all Italian Americans make it the same

And by now, many Italian Americans are diluted and have other cooking influences.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there any Italians on this board? My 100% authentic Italian friends call their tomato sauce " gravy" and it is an all afternoon ordeal making it. Anyone authentic want to weigh in?

Unless you are adding beef bones or something similar, it's not gravy.

Yep, gravy has cuts of meat in it and also usually uses more tomato paste for richness and texture.

Marinara is faster and does not involve slowly cooked meats.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there any Italians on this board? My 100% authentic Italian friends call their tomato sauce " gravy" and it is an all afternoon ordeal making it. Anyone authentic want to weigh in?

Unless you are adding beef bones or something similar, it's not gravy.

I use country style pork ribs because I think cuts of pork with fat and cartilage add the best flavor and texture (and country style pork ribs are ready to go the way they're cut and easy to get unlike some other cuts). The end product has both meatballs and chunks of meat in it.

I make Barefoot Contessa's vodka sauce recipe all the time. It's incredible.

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there any Italians on this board? My 100% authentic Italian friends call their tomato sauce " gravy" and it is an all afternoon ordeal making it. Anyone authentic want to weigh in?

Because it is simmered with meaty bones. It is a mix of a stew and sauce. See the Lidia recipe posted here.

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there any Italians on this board? My 100% authentic Italian friends call their tomato sauce " gravy" and it is an all afternoon ordeal making it. Anyone authentic want to weigh in?

Unless you are adding beef bones or something similar, it's not gravy.