A Hearty Italian Spaghetti Meat Sauce Recipe

Being of Italian heritage I love my Italian food, especially a good hearty Italian meat sauce for  my spaghetti.  Through the years I have slowly create a very good and hearty spaghetti meat sauce that’s very flavorful and is so hearty that it doesn’t need anything with it to fill you up.  Below is my recipe that I hope you will enjoy and use.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 large onion, coarsely chopped,

2 garlic cloves, finely minced,

1 lb. of coarsely ground beef chuck,

1/2 pound of mild Italian ground sausage,

2 (15 ounce) cans of diced tomatoes including the liquid,

1 (15 ounce) can of tomato sauce,

1 (6 ounce) can of tomato paste,

1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped,

5 medium sized mushrooms sliced,

1 (4 ounce) can of sliced black olives,

1/4 cup of a good red wine,

1/4 cup of beef stock,

1 tablespoon of Italian Seasoning,

1 teaspoon of oregano,

1/2 teaspoon of basil,

1/4 teaspoon of ground pepper,

1 teaspoon of sugar.

Directions:

You will want to begin by placing your olive oil in your skillet or Dutch  oven over a medium low heat.  When the oil begins to shimmer it is ready to add in your chopped onion and minced garlic. You will want to saute your vegetables until they begin to soften.  At that point add in your ground chuck and ground sausage and increase your heat to medium and then brown your meat.  Once the meat has been browned you will want to add in the tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste, chopped bell peppers, sliced mushrooms, sliced black olives, red wine, beef stock, Italian seasonings, oregano, basil and pepper.

You will want to bring the sauce to a boil and then reduce the heat to low and allow the sauce to simmer for three to four hours. It is best to cook the sauce this long since it allows the flavors to mix together nicely and thicken.  You want the sauce to end up somewhat thick so you have a nice and hearty sauce.  If the sauce becomes too thick you can add either some more water or wine, but do not add more then another 1/4 cup of the wine. Towards the end you will want to taste the sauce and play with the seasonings to get the taste that you like.   Just remember to add a little at a time and then to taste your sauce since you can always add more seasonings but you can’t remove them.   You will also want to add in the sugar at this time. The sugar is added to reduce the acidity of the tomatoes, not to sweeten the sauce.

 When the sauce it close to being done you will want to cook your spaghetti so place your pasta in a large pot and then cook your pasta as per the directions on the box.  When the pasta is done, drain the pasta into a colander, but do not rinse the pasta.  The reason for not rinsing off the pasta is because if you do this you will be rinsing off the starch and it’s the starch that allows your sauce to stick to the pasta.  If you have ever had spaghetti where your sauce just wont stick to your pasta, this is the reason.

Your spaghetti dinner is now ready so place some pasta on your dish, ladle your sauce generously over your pasta and maybe sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top.  Then sit down and enjoy your dinner with a nice salad and a good glass of red wine, possibly a Merlot.  By the way, this should be the same wine that you put in your sauce.  I say this because some people think that you should use a cheap wine in your sauce.  This is totally wrong and would be a mistake since cheap and bad tasting wine will make a cheap and bad tasting sauce.