Italian Marinara Meat Sauce

This damned fine homemade meat sauce has beef and Italian sausage. We’ve used it on pizza and spaghetti, but not lasagna (only I like lasagna.  The rest of the fam would choose to eat leftovers, though that’s often a good idea).

Course Main Course Cuisine “Italian”/American Servings 16 servings

Prep Time 5 minutes Cook Time 40 minutes Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 lbs. Ground beef
• 2 lbs. Ground Italian sausage
• 2 medium Onions chopped or one really large one (about 1 to 2 cups)
• 8 cloves Garlic minced (3/4 to 1 cup)
• 2 (28 ounce) can Tomatoes, crushed
• 2 (15 ounce) can Tomato sauce
• 2 (6 ounce) can Tomato paste
• 4 T Coconut sugar
• 1 T dried Basil
• 1 T Italian seasoning
• ½ t Fennel seeds
• 1 T Salt (to taste)
• ¼ tsp Cayenne pepper (to taste)
• 2 Bay leaves

Instructions

1. Because this is popular in the family, I use 4 lbs of ground meat.  Therefore, I use a large electric skillet.  Cook beef, sausage, and onion over medium heat until mostly browned, about 5 minutes. Drain.
2. Stir in garlic until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
3. Throw the crushed tomatoes into a blender until smooth-ish (my preference) then stir it in the skillet with the tomato sauce, tomato paste, sugar, basil, Italian seasoning, fennel, bay leaf, salt, and pepper.
4. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
5. Remove bay leaf.
6. Add more salt and pepper to taste if desired (I like an additional 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, but you may prefer less).

Tip:  If you intend to use this over a frozen pizza crust, you will need to let the sauce cool to room temperature.  If you put the cooked and hot sauce on a frozen pizza shell, the crust will be moist and the cheese won’t melt pleasingly.

Adapted from https://www.culinaryhill.com/homemade-meat-sauce/