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The Busy Baker

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Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

Beef Easy Weeknight Meals Main Dishes Pasta

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This Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce recipe is the perfect Italian-style weeknight meal for the whole family – a rich, meaty sauce served over your favourite pasta! Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce Pinterest

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  Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce I don’t know about your family, but at our house spaghetti and meat sauce is everybody’s favourite meal. I make this Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce at least once every two weeks and it’s the dinner I look forward to the most – mainly because my kids love it so much that my husband and I are guaranteed a quiet, peaceful dinner while the kids are stuffing their faces!!

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Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce tablescape with salad In all seriousness, this Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce is the perfect Italian-inspired family meal idea – the sauce is rich and meaty and SO flavourful, and it goes great over your favourite pasta cooked in salted water. Top it off with some fresh herbs and parmesan cheese and serve it with a side salad, and you’ve got the perfect family dinner that that’s better than any Italian Restaurant!

Try this recipe with my Classic Creamy Italian Salad Dressing!!

Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce in blue bowl

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  Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce recipe with salad I hope your family loves this recipe as much as we do! Let me know in the comments below, what’s your family’s favourite comfort food meal?  

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Looking for even more comfort food meals? You’ll LOVE these:

LOOKING FOR MORE EASY WEEKNIGHT MEAL IDEAS?

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Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce

This Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce recipe is the perfect Italian-style weeknight family meal - a rich, meaty sauce served over your favourite pasta!
4.73 from 11 votes
Print Pin Rate
Course: Dinner, Main Course
Cuisine: American, Italian, Meal Prep, Weeknight Meal
Keyword: Best Ever Spaghetti and Meat Sauce
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Servings: 12 servings
Calories: 186kcal
Author: Chrissie (thebusybaker.ca)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds lean ground beef
  • 1 large onion, finely diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 teaspoons dried parsley
  • 1 teaspoon dried basil
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 9 cups canned crushed tomatoes (plain pureed tomato sauce, no salt or flavour added)
  • chopped fresh parsley and parmesan cheese, for garnish
  • spaghetti noodles, cooked according to package directions (I recommend Barilla brand - they're our family's favourite!)
US Customary - Metric

Instructions

  • Heat a large dutch oven pot over medium high heat. 
  • Add the ground beef and cook until almost completely browned, breaking it up with a wooden spoon.
  • Turn the heat to medium and add the onions, garlic, salt and pepper (to taste), parsley, basil, oregano and thyme. Saute with the beef until the onions are soft and translucent. 
  • Add the wine and allow the liquid to evaporate while stirring the mixture regularly so the meat absorbs the flavour of the wine. 
  • When the wine has almost evaporated, add the crushed tomatoes and stir to combine.
  • Cover and let simmer on medium-low heat for at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 hours (turn the heat to low if you plan to simmer for a long time). Stir regularly to ensure the sauce cooks evenly.
  • Prepare the pasta according to the package directions, cooking it in salted water for best results.
  • Serve the sauce over the pasta with a sprinkling of fresh parsley (if desired) and freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Notes

This recipe is great for meal prep because the sauce can be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge for up to 3 days. Freeze in airtight containers for up to 2 months.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cup | Calories: 186kcal | Carbohydrates: 15g | Protein: 19g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 47mg | Sodium: 291mg | Potassium: 840mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 9g | Vitamin A: 390IU | Vitamin C: 18mg | Calcium: 79mg | Iron: 4mg
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Comments

  8. Cheryl Hepditch says

    What brand of red wine d you use in this recipe. I dont drink red wine so i have NO idea. Thanks

    Reply

  10. Greg Zyn says

    This spaghetti and meat sauce recipe does look like the best one, and I will try and make this at home later in the evening. I hope that everything goes to plan; otherwise, the dish won’t be as good as I want it to be.

    Reply

  11. Michele says

    Hi–going to try this tonight!
    Wondering where the sodium comes from in this recipe if you’re using salt free tomatoes? (Hubby has high BP…)
    Thanks!

    Reply

  12. Margaret Grant says

    Nice to see this, thank you. Made a similar one for years due to cooking with a Swiss born chef. Added a small tin of Pastene tomato paste and six cloves of garlic. Fed many daycare children for years who licked their bowls from this and my mother’s very different but awesome recipe.

    Reply

  14. Nicole Bictache says

    I am making this right now, smells so good! One question, my sauce looks really liquidy, I didnt have pureed tomatoes on hand so I pureed whole canned tomatoes would that affect the consistency?

    Reply

    • Chrissie says

      Usually whole canned tomatoes come in juice, which is more liquidy. This is likely why your sauce is watery. To use canned whole tomatoes for this recipe, drain them a little bit first.

      Reply

  15. Elin O says

    5 stars
    This really is the best spaghetti and meatsauce ever! Really easy to make and the addition of wine (which I have never tried before) really added a nice deep flavour. My family loved it! Thanks!

    Reply

    • The Busy Baker says

      Thank you so much Elin! So happy to hear you and your family enjoyed the recipe and that you tried the addition of wine and liked it!

      Reply

  16. Cristina Potters says

    5 stars
    Normally I make a vat full of pork ragú, cooked all day with meaty pork bones, my home-made Italian sausage, the whole nine yards. Today, there was none of that left in my freezer. Oh no! I poked around on the Internet and found your recipe. “How good could it be?”, I asked myself. “It won’t be like MINE.”

    It wasn’t like mine, but OMG! It was marvelous! I did use the wine, and the two-hour simmer, and I added a fresh bay leaf, a TBsp of fennel seeds, a pinch of cinnamon, and another pinch of sugar.

    Served in a big bowl over al dente Barilla fettuccine–with a lot of freshly grated parmesano–perfect.

    You’re bookmarked, Busy Baker. Thank you so much.

    I invite you to enjoy my website, Mexico Cooks!, for Mexico’s food, cultures, and beauty.

    Reply

  18. Marianne says

    5 stars
    Thank you so much, I made it last night with half the recipe. The only thing I did different was 3 small garlic cloves, and a bay leaf while simmering. Delicious and simple to make.

    Reply

  21. Paula says

    4 stars
    I made this last night. My husband repeatedly said it was really good (different…from my other spaghetti sauces). I added little bit of tomato paste, brown sugar, ground fennel. I only put in 6.5 cups of crushed tomatoes and a lot more garlic. Next time I’ll try 6 cups.
    Thank you

    Reply

  22. Susan says

    4 stars
    This is a keeper! Super easy and is a delicious, full flavoured sauce. The only change I made was adding fennel seeds and hot pepper flakes.

    Reply

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