Slow Cooked Oven Baked Spaghetti Sauce

{The making of Slow Cooked Oven Spaghetti Sauce}

Slow cooked spaghetti sauce, just like Nonna used to make.

Wait, I don’t have a Nonna.

What I was going for here was a slow-cooked spaghetti sauce that was virtually hands-off AND didn’t stick to the pot.

But my German mother used to make a slow-cooked spaghetti sauce.  And I’m pretty sure it was close to what Nonna would have made…onions, garlic, meat, tomatoes, herbs, mixed together and put on the “back of the stove” to simmer for a few hours, or more until it was rich, thick and full of flavor.

The only problem is, that sauce still needed attention as the “back of the stove” lost its slow cooking ability when we went from wood burning to gas or electric.  Slow cooking on a wood burning stove allowed the cook to find just the right place to position the pot of slow simmering sauce. The heat source, not being direct, allowed the cook to set it and pretty much forget it.  Even on the lowest temperature of a modern day stove, the heat is direct and the sauce needs to be stirred to keep it from burning to the bottom of the pot.

Not much hands off there.

I don’t know about yours, but every time I lift that lid to stir, the simmering sauce would pop and sputter out all over my stove-top.  And no matter how much stirring was done, or how low the heat, even if a diffuser was used, some of the sauce ALWAYS stuck to the bottom of the pot and that was a PITA to clean. Trust me, my sister and I were the ones who had to wash it – and “to soak overnight” was not an option in my family home, Dad wouldn’t hear of it. ALL dishes must be done before we went on to other tasks.  Scrub and moan, scrub and moan.

I’ve made slow cooked spaghetti sauce in my slow-cooker before, and it’s good, but it still stuck to the bottom of the cooker.

I’ve made slow cooked spaghetti sauce in non-stick pots, and while the clean-up was easier, I had to be very careful not to stir the stuck on parts back into the sauce.

What I was going for here was a slow-cooked spaghetti sauce that was virtually hands-off AND didn’t stick to the pot.

Just like Nonna would make, if I had a Nonna

Taping into my love of slow-braised meats, cook in the oven on low-temperatures for hours to develop rich flavorful gravies, I thought…why not?  Why not bake spaghetti sauce?  Why not indeed. What I ended up with was perfectly cooked, perfectly flavored, deep rich tomatoey sauce that did not stick to the bottom of the pot and it was virtually hands-free, except for the beginning part, you know, browning the meat, adding the onions, all that part.

A video showing how to make Slow Cooked Oven Baked Spaghetti Sauce

There are a couple of really cool parts to this recipe for Slow Cooked Oven Baked Spaghetti Sauce.  First off, you can do all the beginnings the night before, stick it in the refrigerator and cook it the next day.  Second, you could cook it faster at a slightly higher temperature or slower at a lower temperature.  Like a crock-pot but without the crock-pot taste and sticking.  Third and finally, it tastes friggin fantastic on whatever macaroni you put it on.

Macaroni, as you know, is what true Italians call all pasta cuts.  For us non-Italians, serve this sauce with any spaghetti, linguini, penne, shells, whatever your heart desires, Slow Cooked Oven Baked Spaghetti Sauce will make it yummy.  Just remember, no matter what pasta you use, gluten-free, whole wheat, semolina, dried or fresh, use the sauce sparingly.  You just want to coat the pasta with sauce, not drown it.

This sauce also freezes beautifully, and what better than to have a batch of sauce in the freezer for those days you just want some slow cooked spaghetti sauce without having to slow cook it?  Not much.

Mangia bene.

Slow Cooked Oven Baked Spaghetti Sauce

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