My Favorite Spaghetti Sauce

I do believe my quest for the perfect spaghetti sauce is OVER! Over I’m telling you! I just want to do a happy dance!

Note: if you know me in real life, the last statement about me doing physical activity has brought uncontrollable laughter to you. So I apologize for that.

Back to the most amazing sauce! My sweet Mother-in-law brought me some fresh basil from her herb garden the other day. Along with some other herbs. I was gonna use up the dill when I saw the lonely bag of basil on the table. I normally use fresh basil in a chicken pasta dish. But was out of chicken and spaghetti was on my menu plan.  So I tried to find a recipe that used fresh basil but with canned tomatoes.  Apparently if you bother to use fresh basil, then you’re gonna use fresh tomatoes too.  Well I didn’t have any fresh tomatoes so I used what I had, canned. Nor did I have any fresh garlic (gasp).

I just threw some stuff in a pot and hoped for the best! I did have back up though.  I sent LittleChefsDad to Kroger to pick up store bought sauce.  I told him maybe my creation may not be edible. But it was quite the opposite!

Oh the smell! The lovely aroma of the sauce. When we got back from church last night LittleChefsDad came in first and before I walked up the steps he said wait till you smell what’s inside. I thought oh no, a poop diaper I forgot to take out (just keeping it real folks!). He said it smells like an Italian restaurant. And my friends he was soooo right!

My favorite cuisine is Italian and before Celiac Disease The Olive Garden was my favorite restaurant. Oddly enough I never really liked their spaghetti sauce, but loved Alfredo.  This sauce is restaurant quality.  I think the key was the fresh basil.  I’ll have to fix it with dried and report back.

Even LittleChef3 proclaimed it as the best sauce ever and that means a lot coming from a sauce hater! He wasn’t going to eat when he found out it was spaghetti. But after me telling him no bread sticks without some spaghetti he tried it, and loved it!  The kids love spaghetti with these Quick Twisty Breadsticks.

My Favorite Spaghetti Sauce

You can keep it vegetarian, or add meat. All my crew prefer their sauce with cooked ground beef added in.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 1 hr

Total Time 1 hr 5 mins

Ingredients

  

• 1 large onion chopped
• 2 large tsp garlic powder
• 2 cans 15 oz diced tomatoes
• 1 can 15 oz tomato sauce
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp pepper
• 1 cup Fresh Basil tore into small pieces OR 3-4 TBLS dried basil
• 1 cup parmesan cheese

Instructions

 

• Saute onion in olive oil a few minutes then sprinkle garlic powder and continue to cook till onions are soft, do not burn
• Mix rest of the ingredients together, minus Basil, in Large stock Pot or 5-6 Qt pan.
• Bring to boil and lower to medium/low to simmer 30 minutes. Remove Bay Leaves.
• Add Parmesan Cheese, mix well; Add Fresh Basil
• cook additional 30 minutes over low heat

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

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Picture updated 5/17. I love leaving the old pics so I can look back and see how much I’ve improved, and hopefully it’s an improvement 🙂