FENNEL! I have never even thought about adding fennel when I’ve tried Frankensteining a tomato sauce together! Fennel is what I’ve been missing all of this time! You seriously have no idea how many times I’ve gone to make a “quick” meal of spaghetti after a day of work i had 2 hungry growing bottomless pit boys screeching that they’re hungry and I realize I am out of the simple jar of spaghetti sauce! So I toss a can of sauce, paste, and crushed tomatoes and have attempted to cobble something resembling the jar. I’ve tried a combo of every single ingredient you’ve listed except for the fennel! You dear lady, are a genius! In the past, the method was: tiny taste, hmmm bland, maybe more oregano? Taste. Nope still bland. More Italian seasoning! Taste. Nope. More basil. Taste. Nope. Thyme is kinda Italian, right? Taste. Nope. This would continue until the boys started gnawing on my leg and I’d give up. They would immediately eat everything in sight and be happy because they are boys that didn’t care what it tasted like because FOOD! It was me who wasn’t satisfied. Fennel was the secret ingredient! THANK YOU!! This was awesome! The boys are now adults, so they are no longer garbage disposals masquerading as humans, and they gave this the seal of approval, as did I! FENNEL! I followed this exactly and it was easy and perfect and quite frankly awesome!
I was looking for a heartier sauce than a simple tomato sauce. This is it! I used it to make chicken parmesan. Thank you for an easy delish sauce.
Excellent! Next time I'm adding some garlic cloves in too.
OMG! I never made tomato sauce before but this is the best sauce I've ever eaten... I made it one morning and the only I added was some pepper flakes for some heat; and it made the house smell good lol.. Couldn't stop my husband and my three boys from dipping bread into the simmering sauce. It was excellent sauce and thank you for sharing it.
I used diced tomatos already seasoned with Italian spices so all i had to do was saute the onions and garlic then pour in the cans. No spices needed!
Easy AND yummy!!! Mixed a shallot in with the onions changed the Italian seasoning to Oregano and used brown sugar instead of white! 2nd servings seal of approval from my boys = happy momma!
I made this as written and it is excellent...my only thought is the salt...it is very salty. I'm not going to add salt next time and it'll likely be perfect. Thank you!
I've clicked the "made it" button only three times but I've made it far more often than that over the last few months. This is now my go-to tomato sauce recipe. The recipe is very good as is but is also very adaptable. I've altered it many ways almost always starting with browning ground meat (moose elk turkey or beef) omitted fennel seeds sometimes replaced sugar with stevia powder or just skipped it ect. I've made lasagna served it over regular pasta spaghetti squash green beans gluten-free pasta. All were wonderful. Today I intend to attempt it in my slow cooker. I'll update with how it turns out. Thank you for sharing such a good recipe!
