Italian Sausage in Rustic Marinara Sauce

There are so many different tomato based Italian sauces, and they’re all good. It’s as if the Italians have the whole tomato based sauce market cornered, well, they do. But, the humble tomato, the base of all these dishes is not native to Italy. It was brought to Europe when the Spaniards invaded central and south America. We’ll delve a bit more into this later. This post is about chunks of tomatoes, onion, peppers, garlic and spices simmering over a low heat for an hour with Italian sausage, allowing all the flavors to come together in a rich mixture. It is good, so read on for Italian sausage in rustic marinara sauce.

The history

There are a few stories about the origins of the marinara sauce. The name translates to mariner, or seaman. The theories suggest that the ships cooks created the dish using the new “fruit”, the tomato, they were bringing back from the new world. Or the sailors wives would make this for their husbands returning from a voyage. We do know that the first recorded tomato sauce recipe in Italy was in the 17th century, in Naples. Although it was probably more of a salsa than a sauce. But since then it has become a staple of so many dishes, it has become synonymous with Italian food in general

The secret

The secret to cooking a good sauce is time. Time to allow all the ingredients to come together to create layers of flavor. You can’t rush this. But, patience pays off, it tastes delicious. For this dish I use spicy Italian sausage, but, sweet Italian works just as well. I also brown off the sausage and let it cook in the sauce. Every bite is full of rich wholesome flavor. This can be served over just about any pasta product, my favorite is Penne, but regular spaghetti works fine. It’s a personal preference thing.

I like to prep all my ingredients before I start to cook. It’s easier for me to just add the ingredient as the dish cooks than to prep and add the ingredient as the dish cooks. But, everyone is different in their approach, so, I won’t tell you what to do. I will just describe it the way I cook it. Also, remember we’re handling raw meat, please read this post about food prep safety.

The prep

Starting with onions, peppers and garlic, cut into strips and set aside. Preheat a pan over medium heat with olive oil. Put in the vegetables. let everything cook a little bit till the onions start to soften, add the sausages and allow them to cook a bit, keep covered, but stir to prevent sticking. 5 minutes or so should be fine. Remove the sausages and cut into 1″ lengths on the bias and put back into the pan. They will not be cooked through, they will cook in the sauce. Add the herbs, chopped tomatoes and tomato puree, turn to low and cover. Now, for the patience part. Let simmer for about an hour. This will give it time for the individual ingredients to create the deep rich layers of flavor.

While it’s doing it’s thing, cook your pasta of choice so it will be ready when the sausage and sauce has been cooking for an hour. I don’t mention a start time, just an end time. Cooking pasta is a personal thing, everyone likes it a little different, soft or al dente. And everyone serves their pasta differently too. A good friend of mine taught me to drain the pasta and add some olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder and parmesan cheese before plating, it’s delicious.

So plate the pasta, serve the sausage and sauce over, and enjoy Italian sausage in rustic marinara sauce. Thank you for reading