My Go-To Meat Sauce

I always mention my meatsauce in my pasta recipes. I love it. There is just something about it that is so comforting to me and so therefore it is one of my all time comfort foods. Generally I use (gasp) either store bought sauce or my marinara sauce as the base and tweak from there.

People are always asking for pasta recipes so I thought I'd just write up a post with some simple modifications to a basic marinara sauce.

Depending on the meal, some tweaks can include:

- 1 tablespoon dried Italian Seasoning

- 2 Teaspoons Dried Basil

- 1 teaspoon dried Rosemary or Thyme

- 1 teaspoon sugar (especially when using a lot of herbs)

- additional garlic

- 1/2 cup to 1 cup cream

- 1/2 cup vodka

- 1/4 - 1/2 cup red wine (a great use for some of the wine you plan on drinking with dinner!)

- 1 pound cooked ground beef

- 1/2 pound cooked ground beef and 1/2 pound cooked ground sausage (you can always do turkey instead of other meats but ground turkey is generally so expensive at my grocery store that I rarely buy it)

- 1 ounce shredded cheese, melted in to the sauce just before serving (this one is my favorite because it just adds such a richness to the sauce without taking away much of the flavor)

- Meatballs (one day I'll make some again and publish a post with a recipe)

AND SO MUCH MORE!!

Some uses for your new found pasta sauces:

- Spaghetti and Meatsauce

- Manicotti

- Canneloni

- Meatball Subs

- Dipping Sauce for Toasted (Fried) Ravioli

- Tortellini

- Lasagna (this is one of my favorite uses of the meat sauce variation)

And again, the list goes on!