Quick Marinara Sauce

Yesterday we decided to make homemade pizzas but lacked pasta sauce.

My solution?

I turned to my friend Judy’s recipe for Quick Marinara Sauce.

Minimal ingredients, maximum taste. This simple recipe is a quick, flavorful sauce for pasta or pizza.

Quick Marinara Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1/4 C olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 T tomato paste (I put in too much paste, so the sauce in the photo is thicker than normal; I could have added water to dilute it, but didn’t.)
• 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes, including liquid
• 3 T minced fresh basil (I didn’t have fresh, so I shook in dried until it started to taste right)
• salt
• pepper
• sugar (this cuts the acidity without the need to cook it down for hours)

Instructions:

Heat oil in saucepan over medium heat. Cook garlic, stirring for one minute. Add the tomato paste. Cook, stirring constantly, one minute. Add crushed tomatoes. Simmer 10 minutes. Add spices. (I added the spices before the 10 minute simmer so that the dried basil would soften up).

People are partial to various spice combinations and sauce consistencies—preferring, say, oregano to basil; or maybe they like a thicker sauce. I’m partial to this one.

And the kids liked it, too. I recommend it, therefore, not only for its quick preparation and minimal ingredient requirements, but also for its flavor. Simple, but rich. And very satisfying.