This ragu style pasta sauce has become one of my go-to recipes. It’s an adaptation of a recipe I learned from Jamie Oliver, and it requires primarily ingredients that I already have on hand around the house; the prep is super quick. Then, while the sauce is slowly simmering, you can sit back and relax.
Ragu sauce refers to a sauce made of many tiny little pieces of meat and vegetables. This recipe includes Italian sausage, bacon, onions, and zucchini, but you can add as many finely chopped or grated vegetables as you want. The technique involved in making this sauce makes it easy to add extra veggies while all you’ll taste is rich smoky tomato goodness.
This sauce reheats well and freezes well. I highly recommend making a large batch, of his ragu style pasta sauce approximately double this recipe, and freezing it.
Gluten-Free Ragu Style Pasta Sauce
Print RecipeIngredients
- Olive oil
- 2 big sprigs of fresh rosemary
- 1/4 pound of bacon
- 1 pound of ground hamburger or Italian sausage
- 1 onion
- 2 large zucchinis
- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 1 28-ounce can of diced tomatoes
- 1 14-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
- 1 14-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
- 28-ounce water
- Salt and pepper
- Pasta
Instructions
- Turn the heat up to medium-high beneath a large pot and once it’s hot, add olive oil. Chop rosemary and bacon into small bits and add them to the pot. Fry until bacon is beginning to turn crispy.
- Break up the sausage into small bits and add to the pan. Break into smaller pieces as it browns. This will take some effort. The hamburger will break down quickly, but I like the flavour of Italian sausage meat better, and it likes to stay in larger clumps. Fry the meat until lightly golden and the sizzling noises in the pan have increased again, approximately 10 minutes.
- Chop onion and zucchini into tiny pieces. Add to the pot and fry for approximately 10 minutes.
- Add tomato paste, diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, and water. Season with salt and pepper.
- Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes until reduced to a thick sauce.
- Bring a medium pot of water to a boil and salt the water. Cook your pasta according to the directions. With a slotted spoon, lift the pasta directly out of the water into a bowl, or drain the pasta but leave some of the water it was cooked in.
- Add your finished sauce to your bowl of pasta and add a splash of pasta water. Mix well. The starch in the water helps the pasta and the sauce bind together, and the sauce will become smooth and evenly distributed. Sprinkle freshly grated parmesan cheese.
