Homemade Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

My mom makes the best spaghetti sauce. Period. So when I got married I started making our spaghetti sauce.

I was good for a few months, then I felt like it was too hard to store and wouldn't it just be more simple to use the stuff that comes in a jar? So I bought a few jars of sauce and was totally unhappy.

I needed to have homemade sauce.

The issue in the past had been storing the sauce until we used it. I usually put it in a large container and froze half, but it was still too much to use before it went bad a lot of the time. My foray into store bought sauce solved that problem because I ended up with several glass jars!

Now when I make my sauce I use a funnel and fill up spaghetti sauce jars with my homemade sauce! I fill them most of the way, cover with a piece of plastic wrap and seal with a rubber band, and then freeze the extra jars. When I need a new jar, it gets put in the fridge to thaw, and voila! homemade sauce in easy to use sizes!

Here's how I do it:

I buy a 105 oz can of tomato sauce from Costco for $2.50 and add it to some sauteed onion:



I add basil and oregano (from Costco, for cheap but I don't remember the prices)




salt and pepper

and sugar

and let it simmer until it becomes deliciousness

Then it goes into jars to freeze

The size that I buy from Costco makes about 4 - 1/2 to 5 jars of sauce. We usually have it with dinner the day I make the sauce, so I'm not sure exactly how much it is. I use this sauce for all our spaghetti, lasagna, and even homemade pizza dinners. You can add ground beef or turkey, which is the way I used to make it, but now that I use the sauce for pizza on a regular basis, I choose not to put the meat in.

It does take more time than buying a jar at the store, but at this point it is such second nature to make it myself, and with my jar method, it's nearly as convenient because I always have some in my freezer!

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
1 lb ground turkey or beef
1/2 small onion, chopped
2 29 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 t. salt
2 t. oregano
2 t. basil
1/2 t. black pepper
1/4 c. sugar


Costco Size
105 oz can tomato sauce
1 large onion, chopped
3/4 t. salt
3 1/2 T. oregano
3 1/2 T. basil
3/4 t. black pepper
1/2 c. sugar


Of course all proportions can be changed based on what you like. I measure at this point to save time because I make so much...I would have a hard time pouring that much of a single spice into something without tasting it along the way. I still do check for taste, but the measurements help me get it pretty close!