Tomato Pasta Sauce

I love my pasta sauce to be chock full of veggies, onion, and mushrooms. I am known to throw a handful of spinach or chop some zucchini into my sauce. This sauce is a great way to be creative and get your veggies into your meal. This works well with angel hair, spaghetti, rotini, and also spaghetti squash. I am not saying that spaghetti squash is a substitute for pasta. It is not. But it is lovely and delicious with this sauce.

Also, this sauce is easy to size up, and it freezes well. Often, I make this with 28 oz of tomatoes and freeze or make pasta/spaghetti squash for several meals.

1 14 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 shallot, chopped (You can use .25 cup of chopped onion, but shallots are like onions for one.)
4 mushrooms sliced (Baby bellas or button are good)
2 cloves of garlic smashed or chopped (trust me, smashed is easiest)
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 teaspoon of sugar (optional)
Fresh basil, oregano, and tarragon (you can use dried as well)
Small bottle of red wine (You can find four packs of wine for one)

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Lower the heat to medium. Add the shallot and cook for about 3-5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Add the crush tomatoes. I wish I could say, use x amount of herbs, but this is a taste thing. Start light and add more until it tastes right to you.

If you are going to add wine, again, this is a taste thing. I have been known to make some pretty purple sauce, but I would start with a quarter of the bottle, taste, and a little more. Finally, if you are going to add wine, add the sugar. It will cut the acidity.

Again, you can add so much to this. I will fry some Italian sausage, or like I said, add spinach or something else that sounds yummy to you.

If you try this, leave a message in the comments on how you like it, any tweaks you made, and or any difficulties in following the recipe.

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