Maroni Sauce

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I made the meatballs and the sauce. The meatballs did not fall apart in the sauce, even though I let it simmer with meatballs in it for a couple of hours. The meatballs were wonderfully light, not dense and heavy at all. My only change was that for the meatballs and the sauce I pureed the onion, simply because if my daughter can see onions she will not eat the dish. I find that the onion taste is heavier when you puree, so I used less than both recipes called for, just to achieve a balance. The sauce became a little too thick, so I added about a 1/2 cup of low sodium chicken broth (Might would have used chianti if I had it. We put parmagiano and crushed red peppers on at the table, to each person's taste.
Coming from an italian family, I feel safe about adding this to my repertoire of meatballs. It is terrific! Many thanks to the Maroni's for sharing!

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i make this sauce all the time and i love it! I agree with the previous post, you have to use the right tomatoes or it's just not the same. I know they are more expensive, but it's worth it in the end. This sauce is great as written, but i also make it with less oil on those days i am feeling healthy and either way it turns out great - as long as you use good tomatoes and fresh basil.

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I thought sauce had to cook all day...wrong 30 minutes and I have the greatest homemade sauce I ever tasted. My Italian mother in law was in shock.

After it sits the amount of oil is not too much, it allows the sauce to cling nicely to the pasta. You have to use a sweet spanish onion and dice it very small, 12 cloves of garlic was shocking but no one has ever said wow too much garlic.

I diced the onion very fine and same with the garlic and let it simmer until totally soft, the secret is using San Marzana crushed tomatoes ( tried other favorite brands it wasn't as good. Also add salt. I usually make about 4 pounds of meatballs at a time and after baking and cooling freeze them in baggies according to how many we will eat at a meal. After 30 minutes of cooking the sauce I turn it off and throw in the meatballs, then let it set for about 2 hours, then I reheat for about 15 minutes before I want to eat. Never cover sauce with a lid...learned that the hard way it will go sour very fast after it cools.

But 30 minute sauce...come on fresh and so much better than any jarred I have ever had. You don't have preservatives or all that salt added, along with high fructose corn syrup that some sauces do have. I even think my local favorite Italian restaurant would like to know my recipe, my mother in law told them that I made better red sauce then they did...they laughed.

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Not sure what some of the other reviewers were complaining about - I followed the recipe exact but cut the olive oil down by half and it was wonderful. I'll never buy jarred sauce again.

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I have a recipe that is very much like this one, so I thought I'd give this one a try since it got such amazing reviews.. but yuck. Luckily I read a lot of the reviews and a few people said they added red wine.. so I did the same. It made it tolerable. It tasted like bitter tomatoes.. and I followed this recipe EXACT, even getting high quality Olive Oil.. I did notice that the leftover sauce the next day that had some broken up meatballs fall apart in it, tasted better than it did the first night.

Try this next time:

Use One large can (28 oz of tomato SAUCE instead of the crushed tomatoes that this one calls for.. and one small can of tomato paste + 1 tomato paste can's worth of water.

Use less garlic.. I use 4-5 cloves normally, and if I'm feeling like extra garlic 6 or 7. but you could probably use as much garlic as this recipe called for, it would just be a bit much for me.

Also, the onion I use doesn't have to be spanish, I just use a yellow onion.

After the sauce is prepared, I put some kind of meat in and bring it back up to a boil, and then turn the heat as LOW as it will go and let it sit covered for an hour.. BUT.. If I don't have the time to let it sit for an hour, then I cook up a small piece of meat in a pan (like one pork chop or something and use the oil from the meat as my oil at the beginning of the sauce.. that way it still has the meat juices.

That's it.. the only difference.. Oh, and I have never used basil (fresh or dry in my sauce, but I'm definitely going to from now on. That part I did like.



I PROMISE you, it will be 10 times better than this junk. For some reason the flavor of the crushed tomatoes is very plain.. Tomato Sauce is the way to go

Also.. the oilyness is also the same in my recipe.. but I think it's good having a lot of oil in it.. if I try using less, it just doesn't taste the same.

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I think the flavor was odd. I think this was because the amount of oil that was required. Half the oil and some petite diced tomatoes and i think it woul have been better.
Maroni's Meatballs on the other hand you have got to try! They are fantastic!

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Much like the accompanying meatball recipe, the techniques and ingredients for a classic Italian sauce are intrinsically correct, but the proportions are wrong. I'm almost wondering if they were improperly communicated to keep the family recipes a secret.

12 cloves of garlic is the better part of an entire head. That's way too much. 2-4, depending upon the size and freshness of the cloves, is more than enough. 2 plain old yellow onion is fine. 3 cans of tomatoes is better than two (get good ones to avoid a bitter sauce.

What bothered me the most about this? 6 ounces of oil is 3/4 of a cup. 3/4 CUP. I have never, ever, ever - for any recipe - used more than a tablespoon or two of oil to saute onions and garlic. And you throw the garlic in just before you add the liquids, otherwise it just burns and lends a terrible taste.

While basil at the end is nice, 1/2 a bunch of minced Italian Parsley that cooks with the sauce is better.

While it's not necessary, on occasion, you might need to add sugar. Not so you have a sweet sauce, but if your tomatoes aren't good or you burned some garlic, it helps counteract. Add it slowly so you don't end up with a nasty sauce.

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A great combination with the meatballs. I have made alot of different sauces and I have to say this one was the one. Just a few simple ingredients and BAM the sauce is together. I cooked the meatballs in the sauce for about 15 minutes after they came out of the oven, and it came out great! I plan on making a few twists to the recipe to make it my own, but I couldn't have started with a more easy recipe!

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This recipe is a true tomato sauce...doesn't taste like sugar or oregano,etc.
Simply awesome tomato sauce.
The kind of tomatoes you use will make or break the sauce.
Splurge and buy the San Marzano imported tomatoes, they are from Italy.
I only used 2 ou of oil and I used an immersion blender to blend the tomatoes and the oil together. Use fresh ingredients.
Adding the basil at the end really made it hold the flavor!
Was even better the next day. Thank you Mr. Maroni, this will go into the family
favorite recipes. I'm hard to impress and I'm impressed!

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This is the very best marinara sauce - hands down winner!!!! It's the sauce you want to have on hand for everything from just topping a bowl of pasta to assembling lasagna or eggplant parmesan. Reading the review from Doug out of N. Tonawanda, NY was pretty disturbing. First of all, when someone is that narrow minded about food, they shouldn't be writing reviews about food!! Take a page out of Bobby Flay's book going forward and open that mind of yours up! He's a celebrity chef making all kinds of money based on his talents and expertise and even HE is open minded enough to do these "throw down" contests. I'm sure your family's traditional recipe is good but to say Maroni's isn't just shows that you're not realizing about different styles to which the Italians have the market cornered. The fact that you're one out of, oh, I don't know hundreds, maybe?.......saying it's not good, speaks for itself!!!!