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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!

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