Red Wine Pasta Sauce is simple yet flavourful. Sometimes less is more!
You may well have everything you need in your pantry already. You just mix all the ingredients in a sauce pan and simmer for about an hour.
In theory -even the 60 minutes would be flexible but I would suggest 20 minutes at least to meld the flavours.
We got into a routine upon arriving at our vacation home in the Azores. It would be about 8 pm in the evening, and after an overnight flight and some wait times between flights we needed something easy but comforting. We hit on spaghetti with a jarred Bolognese sauce.
This sauceis similar to Bologneses but uses red wine instead of white and has more tomatoes but it is simple and flavourful and that was the goal.
If you want to 'beef' it up (no pun intended!) you can brown ground beef first in the sauce pan and then add in the remaining ingredients.
This sauce will work over plain pasta. I have used it over eggplant parmigiana and over this Meatloaf With Italian Sausage.
The recipe makes about 3 cups so you can either sauce a lot of pasta or you can freeze some for a later use.
It only calls for ¼ cup of red wine so I would suggest that you choose a dry, Italian red like a Sangiovese, Chianti, Primitivo or a Valpolicella. There are also good value red blends that simple have 'Rosso' in the title that are good for everyday drinking as well. Use a quality that you would drink on its own. So...you can use a bit in the sauce and serve the rest as an accompaniment to your meal.
Alternatively - it would be a great way to use up that last little bit in a bottle too!
Ingredients
- 23 oz Passata or ground tomatoes
- ¼ cup dry red wine optional
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley
- 1 tablespoon dried basil
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano or sub 3 tablespoon dried Italian spice mix for parsley, basil and oregano
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- pinch of baking soda
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 2 Tbsps fresh basil chopped (or frozen)
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a sauce pan. Stir well to mix.
- Add the chopped fresh or frozen basil if using.
- Simmer over low heat for 60 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Serve over pasta, meatloaf or wherever desired.
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