family favorite spaghetti with meat sauce

T he “inevitable but always delicious” spaghetti with meat sauce. It’s our family favorite and loved by everyone – but it never used to be so thoroughly enjoyed.

We used to always buy the huge Prego sauce at Costco and regular ground beef. Everyone liked it except Pebbles. She HATED it. Literally until maybe 8 years old… she would just have plain spaghetti noodles for dinner.

There was a great recipe that we got with our Vitamix for sauce so we thought we’d try it. It was so good – and Pebbles LOVED the sauce instantly.

We made a couple very minor tweaks and it’s practically scientific and perfect every time – I call it ‘inevitable’ because usually every week or so I run out of ideas, or groceries, but seems like we always can make spaghetti!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 can 15 oz organic tomato sauce
• 1 can 6 0z organic tomato paste
• 1 can 14.5 oz Organic ready-cut diced tomatoes
• 2 tsp McCormick Tuscan Style Italian Seasoning
• 1 tsp dried onions (*we buy the Kirkland chopped onion)
• 1 tsp garlic (*we’ve been using the dehydrated fresh garlic since it’s easy)
• black pepper to taste (*we don’t add salt, not needed enough sodium in the tomatoes)
• 1 tbsp. raw sugar (*never use white sugar, our next default would be either dark brown sugar or grape jelly)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (*we like to use the more expensive fresh Parmesan cheese on top, and sometimes use in the sauce – but the dried cheese is fine too)
• dash of olive oil
• 1-1.25 pounds organic ground beef (*we changed to organic from regular because it’s tastier, healthier, and a better finer texture. No odd bits in it!! ;p)

METHOD

1. Pour all cans into the Vitamix.
2. Put in all spices, sugar and grated Parmesan cheese into the Vitamix.
3. Start on low speed and move up to high and blend until smooth.
4. Brown the ground beef.
5. Pour the blended sauce into the pan with the browned ground beef.
6. Bring to a boil then turn down to a low simmer and cover.
7. Bring the water to a boil and cook your pasta al dente.
8. When cooked strain the noodles, serve up and ladle sauce on top.
9. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese – we love fresh grated.

You can absolutely skip the Vitamix in this recipe and have a chunkier sauce, however I think the reason why my family loves this so much is because it’s silky smooth and they don’t like the surprise bits of tomato.  It’s thick, creamy and velvety. A winner!