WHO has GOOD homemade spaghetti & Pizza sauce recipe?

[Gary350]

I am looking for a GOOD recipe for making Spaghetti sauce & Pizza sauce from home grown garden tomatoes?

I guess I am getting lazy, I just don't want to do a lot of trial & error cooking to find a good recipe. I looked at online recipes there are many variations most say, 1 can 15 oz can of tomato sauce, 1 can tomato paste, and Italian seasoning. That is not what I want. Most online recipes have no garlic & no onion. Few recipes have basil. Some have bay leaf, some have oregano, some have parsley.

Wife buys Pizza sauce to make spaghetti and Lasagna it has a much better flavor. WHAT makes pizza sauce so much better than spaghetti sauce recipes online recipes are about the same?

RAGU pizza sauce we buy says, tomato puree, tomato paste, soybean oil, salt, spices.

I have a pantry full of garden tomatoes all canned in mason jars with the skins. Skins give the tomatoes very good tomato paste flavor.

I want to cook 2 quarts of tomatoes in the crock pot until most of the water boils off then add, garlic, onions, and the correct combination of herbs to make a good pizza sauce. Once I fine a good recipe I want to make 5 gallon of pizza sauce then can it in mason jars.

What is your best pizza sauce recipe made with garden tomatoes & herbs?

[Gary350]

This is my first experiment with homemade pizza - spaghetti sauce. Put 2 quart mason jars of garden tomatoes from the panty into the large crock pot. The garden big beef tomatoes were canned with seeds and tomato skins. Run tomatoes in kitchen blender on high long enough to turn seeds and skins to liquid. Cook in crop pot with no lid so water evaporates and tomatoes turn into a thicker tomato sauce. Put 1 large onion & 9 BIG Garlic cloves in the food processor chip into tiny pieces than add to the tomato sauce. I added 1/3 of finely chopped fresh garden parsley and 10 sprigs of English thyme from the garden. Add 2 tablespoons of dry Italian seasoning from Family Dollar. No fresh garden oregano is available. Add 1/2 tsp ground red pepper, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper. Simmer in crock pot 1 hour with the lid. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of Parmesan cheese & stir well.

We used the sauce to make Lasagna. Italian sausage cooked in the skillet, mozzarella cheese, provolone cheese, flat lasagna noodles. Build a Lasagna in a large baking dish then bake in the oven about 1 hour until all the cheese melts and it looks good on top. Cool about 45 minutes so you don't burn your tongue.

This turned out very good but does not have the good tangy flavor of Ragu pizza sauce. Something is missing?

I think I over cooked the tomatoes and cooked away all the acid.

I can not find a recipe that calls for Basil but maybe it needs so?

Maybe it needs more salt?

Maybe fresh garden herbs would be better than Dollar Store herbs?

Maybe I should add a tablespoon of vinegar to bring back the acid flavor.

[gumbo2176]

I have no issue using canned diced tomatoes, tomato paste, tomato sauce as the base of my red gravy. I am from New Orleans, so everything we cook here is started with the "trinity" of seasonings, which consists of diced onion, bell pepper and celery. We also use a good amount of minced garlic, oregano, thyme, sweet basil, rosemary, bay leaves, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper as seasonings.

I made a large pot of meatballs, Italian Sausage and red gravy just last week. I generally make between 3-4 gallons at a time with 50 meatballs the size of a handball and the Italian sausage out of the casings and rolled up about the size of Swedish meatballs and all of them browned off before adding to the gravy.

If you're interested in my recipe, PM me with your e-mail address and I'll forward it to you.