Chunky Spaghetti Sauce

How to Make Chunky Spaghetti Sauce from Scratch

I greatly enjoy cooking from scratch. When I use fresh ingredients the end results are out of this world. But, even when made from canned ingredients, spaghetti sauce from scratch is delicious.

I always start at least a day ahead of when I want to serve it. My family enjoys chunky spaghetti sauce, so I use tomato sauce and chopped tomatoes. If I use canned tomatoes, I use a regular can of each, which is about 16 ounces. It's hard to say how many fresh tomatoes it will take to make spaghetti sauce. It depends on how big your tomatoes are and how much sauce you need. I would suggest starting with 6 large tomatoes. As they cook down, add more if there is not enough tomato sauce. If I use fresh tomatoes I use ripe ones to make the sauce and slightly green ones for the chunks. Most ripe tomatoes will cook into mush. That is why I use slightly greens ones if I want them to stay chunky.

To add to the chunky texture, I put several kinds of peppers into the sauce. I usually use bell peppers, hot banana peppers, and one or two jalapeños. This really depends on how hot you want the spaghetti sauce to be. The hotter you want it to be, the more jalapeños you put in the sauce. There are many types of peppers and you can use any type you like.

Another ingredient you can use to add to the chunky consistency is onions. You can either use dried onions or fresh chopped onions. Use approximately ½ a regular sized onion or ¼ cup of dried onions.

For herbs and spices I use marjoram, parsley, thyme and bay leaves. Sometimes I use a little savory. It has a peppery taste. I put approximately a 1/2 tablespoon of each of these. The main herbs I use are garlic and oregano. I load the spaghetti sauce down with these. I use more garlic than oregano, but I quite a bit of each. I use approximately 1 ½ to 2 tablespoons of each of these. I prefer to use minced garlic, but sometimes I don't have it and I use garlic powder. I don't use the packets of pre-mixed spices because they usually have lots of salt. Of course, fresh ingredients result in the best tasting spaghetti sauce, in my opinion. But, use what you've got on hand.