Home Cooking: My Favorite Meat Sauce for Pasta

I made a big pot of this healthy and delicious sauce this past week, and froze individual servings for Brett and I enjoy for the the next few months. Spaghetti with meat sauce is one of our favorite meals year-round, and while I love a good marinara sauce (especially Rao’s), our family’s favorite recipe for meat sauce is the one below, sent in to Cooking Light magazine several years ago by a reader, Erika Boyer, and then passed on to me by my sister. 

I love this recipe for a variety of reasons:

• It makes enough for at least two regular size meals for a family, or for a crowd if you’re having a party. Freezing half for another meal saves on cooking time later. For just the two of us, I put 1 1/2 cups of the sauce in ziplock bags for the freezer, and got seven bags from the recipe (plus a container for the refrigerator to enjoy next week).
• It has lots of vegetables in it! Back when we had a garden and it was bursting with peppers, tomatoes and zucchini, I made up extra batches of this sauce for the freezer, but these days all the ingredients can be affordably purchased locally. The sauce can easily become vegetarian/vegan with a ground beef substitute (I did this a few times and no one noticed). And, one-half cup grated carrot can be substituted for the sugar if you want to add even more vegetables.
• It’s very low fat. Using ultra-lean ground beef, there are only 4.6 grams of fat per serving. Ground turkey or a meat substitute can also be used instead of beef to lower the fat content even more. My favorite is a 50-50 mix of lean ground beef and ground pork.
• It tastes really, really good! I know it’s not authentically Italian, but it’s thick, filling, and great over spaghetti, and equally good served with polenta or gnocchi. Our girls loved this sauce (still do), and so did their friends who supposedly hated vegetables.

MEAT SAUCE FOR PASTA

• 1 pound ground beef or other lean ground meat
• cooking spray
• 1 1/2 cups diced onion
• 1 1/2 cups diced green bell pepper
• 1 cup diced red pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups shredded zucchini (about 2 large)
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper (optional)
• 1/4 cup sugar (can substitute 1/2 cup grated carrot)
• 1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 28-oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes with garlic and basil
• 1 12-oz can tomato paste
• 1 7-oz bottle of roasted red bell peppers, undrained
• 1/2 cup good red wine
• salt & pepper to taste

In a large Dutch oven or pot, cook the meat over med-high heat until browned and crumbled. Drain meat well and set aside. Wipe out pan and coat with cooking spray. Heat pan and add onions, diced peppers, and garlic, sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add zucchini and sauté an additional 5 minutes. Drain the vegetables and return to pot along with the meat; add oregano and crushed red pepper, if using. Cook the vegetable-meat mixture over med-high heat for another 5 minutes, then add crushed and diced tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar and the water from bottle of roasted pepper. Chop the roasted peppers and add to the pan, along with wine. Add salt & pepper to taste. Bring sauce to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for at least an hour, or until the sauce is thick.