Hearty marinara sauce is a delicious Italian sauce made with hand-crushed tomatoes, sautéed garlic and onion, rich olive oil, fresh basil, and flavorful Italian herbs. It's easy, fairly quick, and makes a fantastic pasta sauce or dipping sauce.
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Why You'll Love This Dish
First, it's delicious. This easy marinara sauce is rich, savory, and zesty, with a perfect balance of acidity and sweetness.
This sauce is based on a homemade marinara sauce my grandmother (Nana to me) used to make for the whole family. While Nana herself was from Ukraine, she learned to cook from our Papa's mother, who was from Sicily.
Nana made the best Italian food I've ever tasted, and my dad carries on the tradition of her homemade meatballs and sauce every year at Christmas with his own homegrown tomatoes. I look forward to that meal like, well, a kid at Christmastime.
Traditional marinara sauce is generally smooth in texture. This version, however, is a chunky sauce (hence, hearty marinara).
This texture is achieved by hand-crushing whole peeled tomatoes instead of buying tomatoes that are crushed or diced. The photo above shows the texture you are looking to achieve.
This sauce is made with mostly pantry ingredients. Outside of the fresh basil, you may already have everything you need on hand to make this recipe.
It's fairly quick, too--the sauce comes together in less than 40 minutes. Plus, it's better than store-bought tomato sauce without an awful lot more effort! Once you make your own homemade marinara, you won't want to go back to the jarred stuff.
What You'll Need
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- Canned Tomatoes I like to use the Cento brand of San Marzano tomatoes best. They are consistently excellent quality. You can also use canned plum tomatoes. The key is buying whole tomatoes, not diced or crushed tomatoes, or tomato sauce.
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil California Olive Ranch is my favorite brand.
- Onion I recommend yellow onion here, but sweet onion will work as well.
- Fresh Garlic You can also use a bit of jarred chopped garlic.
- Fresh Basil If you can't find fresh basil, omit this ingredient rather than replacing it with dried basil.
- Italian Herbs are often called Italian Seasoning. I buy a blend called Italian Supper from a local spice shop called Silverlake Spice Station. I absolutely recommend checking them out. Use your own favorite blend--one with basil, oregano, and garlic powder is a good choice.
- Red Pepper Flake optional, but chili flake adds a tiny bite to the sauce that's just wonderful.
- Kosher Salt Diamond Crystal is the brand I recommend. It greatly improved the quality of my cooking when I switched.
- Black Pepper A few cranks of fresh black pepper is perfect.
Recommended Tools
Kitchen Knife This is my favorite! For its price, this is the best kitchen knife for a home cook. I use it every day.
How to Make Hearty Marinara
Step One Finely dice your onion.
Step Two Finely chop your garlic.
Step Three Crush the whole peeled tomatoes by hand over a large bowl and set aside.
Step Four Heat olive oil in a saucepot over medium-low heat until shimmering. Sweat the onions.
Step Five Add the garlic and chili flake and cook until fragrant.
Step Six Add the tomatoes to the pot, along with the Italian herb blend, chili flake, fresh basil, salt and pepper. Stir.
Step Seven Bring the sauce to a boil and then down to a simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the basil leaves.
Step Eight Taste for seasoning and serve!
Variations
- You can make this a traditional smooth marinara sauce by using crushed tomatoes.
- You can add some additional vegetables to this sauce for an even heartier meal. Try some very finely diced carrots and green bell pepper while the onion sweats.
- To make this a spicy sauce, use a heftier pinch of red pepper flakes.
How to Store
Fridge Store leftover marinara in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 to 4 days.
Freezer After your sauce has cooled completely, transfer to a freezer-safe airtight container like a gallon plastic bag. Lay flat while freezing to conserve space in your freezer. The sauce will taste best if eaten within 6 months.
Reheating From the fridge, add your sauce to a pot over medium heat. Bring up to a boil and down to a simmer before serving.
From the freezer, you can either defrost the sauce in the refrigerator overnight and then reheat as above, or you can add frozen sauce directly to a pot over medium heat until it melts and heats through.
FAQ
Marinara is a smooth, quickly cooked, tomato-based Italian sauce mostly served over pasta. It commonly contains olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs. It can contain onions as well.
Hearty marinara sauce is largely the same, but with larger pieces of tomato produced by hand-crushing whole peeled tomatoes. Other varieties of hearty marinara sauce may contain vegetables like carrots, peppers, or celery.
While pasta sauce and pizza sauce often use very similar ingredients, including tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and garlic, pizza sauce is typically not cooked before it is added to the pizza crust.
As pizza sauce is typically not cooked until it is added to the pizza and placed in the oven, marinara is traditionally used as a pasta sauce.
Expert Tips
- When crushing the tomatoes, remove any pieces of peel you find in the cans. The texture of the sauce is better without these included.
- If you're looking for an even thicker sauce consistency, add in a tablespoon or two of tomato paste while you are sweating your onions. Cook it down a bit and then add the remaining ingredients.
- If you find that the sauce is too thick and/or you don't like the larger pieces of tomato, use a hand blender to smooth out the sauce.
How to Serve
I like to serve this sauce over a variety of pasta dishes. The sauce is perfect for most long, thin noodles like spaghetti and linguine and short, thick noodles like rotini, penne, or ziti.
It's wonderful over Italian Chicken Cutlets, a few leaves of fresh basil, and a slice of provolone cheese to make Chicken Parmesan.
You can also serve it as a dipping sauce for garlic bread or other baked goods.
Serve it up with a little side salad, or some roasted broccolini!
Other Recipes You'll Love
Looking for some more tomato pasta sauces? Try these recipes!
📖 Recipe
Hearty Marinara Sauce
Equipment
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive oil extra virgin
- 1 small onion yellow or sweet
- 4 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 56 ounces whole peeled tomatoes from (2) 28-ounce cans
- 1 tablespoon Italian herb blend often labeled Italian seasoning
- pinch red pepper flake optional
- 1 sprig fresh basil
- kosher salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Finely dice your onion and finely chop your garlic.
- Crush the whole peeled tomatoes by hand over a large bowl and set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a saucepot over medium-low heat until shimmering. Sweat the onions until they are translucent, 5 to 10 minutes.
- Add the garlic and red pepper flake (if using) and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds to 1 minute.
- Add the hand-crushed tomatoes to the pot, along with the Italian herb blend, fresh basil, salt and pepper. Stir well to combine.
- Bring the sauce up to a boil and then down to a simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the sprig of basil. Taste for seasoning and serve.
Notes
- When crushing the tomatoes, remove any pieces of skin you find in the cans.
- If you're looking for an even thicker sauce consistency, add in a tablespoon or two of tomato paste while you are sweating your onions. Cook it down a bit and then add the remaining ingredients.
- If you find that the sauce is too thick and/or you don't like the larger pieces of tomato, use a hand blender to smooth out the sauce.
- Fridge Store leftover marinara in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 to 4 days.
- Freezer After your sauce has cooled completely, transfer to a freezer-safe airtight container like a gallon plastic bag. Lay flat while freezing to conserve space in your freezer. The sauce will taste best if eaten within 6 months.
- Reheating: Fridge Add your sauce to a pot over medium heat. Bring up to a boil and down to a simmer before serving.
- Reheating: Freezer You can either defrost the sauce in the refrigerator overnight and then reheat as above, or you can add frozen sauce directly to a pot over medium heat until it melts and heats through. Bring up to a boil and down to a simmer before serving.
Shar says
We enjoyed the night with this marinara sauce. Used this on our pasta night and it was a hit! It was packed with flavors and so satisfying!
Genevieve says
Amazing! So glad to hear it, Shar.
Cam says
We loved this so much! will try this again!
Genevieve says
Wonderful, thanks Cam!
Dana says
I loved the flavors the fresh basil and whole tomato brought to this marinara sauce. It smelled so good while it was cooking and made for a very special meal that was so delicious.
Genevieve says
I'm really glad you enjoyed it, Dana. Love the smell of this sauce!
Lisa says
This recipe was easy and tasted much better than marinara sauce in a jar.
Genevieve says
So glad you think so, Lisa! Thank you!
Liz says
This marinara was so simple and so delicious! We loved it. Will make again.
Genevieve says
Fantastic, thanks Liz!
Gina says
Love how easy and simple this sauce is while still having delicious simmered all day flavor.
Genevieve says
I'm so glad to hear it. Thanks, Gina!
Greta says
This Marinara sauce was super delicious. I made it with rotini pasta and grilled chicken. For side garlic bread. Thanks for your recipe it came out so good. I also did understand now the difference between pasta sauce and pizza sauce. I didn't knew it until now. Thanks
Genevieve says
Ooh yum, that sounds great! Thank you, Greta!
Sharina says
Kids loved the spaghetti because of this marinara sauce. I added a lot of cheese, and it was a hit!
Genevieve says
Yay! So glad the kids liked it. Lots of cheese is always a good idea.