We love pasta and marinara pasta sauce with meatballs is a family favorite! Homemade sauce is always so much better and more flavorful than pre-made sauces from the store – and you can control the ingredients! When you’re in a pinch, store sauces can be good, don’t get me wrong (we use them lots), but nothing beats homemade sauce that’s been cooking for an hour…or even all day long!
Recipes for tomato sauce dates back to the late 1600’s and pasta with tomato sauce dates to 1790. I was actually quite surprised to see tomato sauce dating back to the 18th century, but it was a way to preserve the tomato harvest. Store bought sauces started to appear in 1920 and became more popular and mass produced by 1937. The history of pasta sauce is quite interesting and I could go on and on, but I’ll save that for another day!
Time to get cooking!
Let’s get started!
Cook onion and shredded carrot until golden and onion is tender. I seasoned with 3 Onion seasoning, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.
Once tender, it’s time to add the crushed tomatoes!
Add 1 large can of crushed tomatoes, splash of red wine vinegar, sake, sugar, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning. Add water.
I had extra tomato sauce in the fridge, so I added that as well.
While sauce is cooking, prepare meatballs. Mix together Italian sausage meat, red pepper, shredded cheese, egg and breadcrumbs. Stir well. Roll into meatballs. My daughter made mini meatballs.
Once pasta sauce is boiling, turn heat down and add meatballs.
Place lid on, lower heat to a simmer and cook for at least 45 minutes to one hour. Stir occasionally so sauce doesn’t burn. The longer it cooks, the better it tastes.
This sauce is so flavorful and delicious!
Serve on your favorite pasta. Tomoght, we are using spaghettini.
We each scooped our pasta, put shredded cheese or Parmesan cheese on and as much (or as little) sauce and meatballs we as liked. So delicious!
Here’s my daughters:
And I made plenty of pasta and sauce so I could freeze some sauce, and have for leftovers — we’ll be making spaghetti pizza which is one of our favorites!
Homemade Pasta Sauce with Italian Meatballs
1 onion, diced
1 shallot, diced — 1/2 saved for the meatballs
2/3 cup shredded carrot
1 tbsp 3 Onion seasoning
2 tbsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp salt
Fresh cracked pepper
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
Splash red wine vinegar
1 tbsp sake
1 tbsp sugar
1 red pepper, diced — 1/4 cup save for the meatballs
Meatballs:
Italian sausage meat
1/4 cup red pepper from the one red pepper diced for the sauce
Shallot saved from sauce
1/2 cup shredded cheese – we used mozzarella
1 egg
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
Cook onion and shredded carrot until golden and onion is tender. Seasoned with 3 Onion seasoning, half the Italian seasoning, sprinkle of salt and pepper. Once tender, add crushed tomatoes, red wine vinegar, sake, sugar, 1 tsp salt, pepper and remaining Italian seasoning
While sauce is cooking, prepare meatballs. Mix together Italian sausage meat, red pepper, shallot or onion, shredded cheese, egg and breadcrumbs. Stir well. Roll into meatballs.
Once pasta sauce is boiling, turn heat down and add meatballs. Place lid on, lower heat to a simmer and cook for at least 45 minutes to one hour. Stir occasionally so sauce doesn’t burn. Serve on your favorite pasta.
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours