Any good and semi-healthy pasta sauce?
I tried Hunts No Added Sugar Pasta Sauce. (For .5 cup, it had 35 cal, .5g fat, 7g carbs, 1g protein.) It tasted ok, but was nowhere as good as my Ragu. Also, I could only find it on Amazon and it was expensive.
What I usually do is just set aside my portion of whatever I want pasta sauce on and put as little sauce as I can live with (usually one or two tbsp.)
Depends on how much you want,...
large can of diced tomatoes or whole plum tomatoes that you squish up yourself. Drain liquid and reserve.
beef broth - about a cup. Best if you make this yourself to limit sodium, but there are some low sodium versions.
a large yellow onion diced.
two to four cloves of garlic minced depending on what you like.
dried oregano, thyme salt and pepper. About a teaspoon of each.
1 packet of artificial sweetener.
1/2 cup red wine. It will boil off most of the alcohol, so it should be okay.
tablespoon or two of red wine vinegar.
1 small can of anchovies.
tomato paste 1 small can
you can also add minced celery leaves, and minced carrots, sliced mushrooms if you want more veggies
basil leaves - use fresh. And roll up and julienne in strips.
ground sweet Italian sausage if you can eat this. Brown this well and drain and reserve.
olive oil.
put a tablespoon of olive oil in bottom of large heavy pot. Add all veggies except tomatoes. Add anchovies. Stir over medium heat until onions are translucent and anchovies have dissolved.
Add drained tomatoes. Cook on low until the tomatoes have broken down a bit -about thirty minutes. Stir frequently. I use a potato smasher to help the tomatoes blend in. Leave a few small chunks for texture. Stir in tomato paste. Add about a cup of beef broth, the red wine and the vinegar. Cook uncovered on low for 45 minutes. It will get runny at first but then thicken as moisture evaporates. Taste for seasonings. If you don't need the salt, leave it out. Add pepper, thyme, oregano and half the basil.
If it gets too thick, add some of the reserved tomato juice from can. Add sausage at this point if you are going to use it. Let it simmer for another 15 minutes or so... Taste and add artificial sweetener. Splenda seems to work well for this.
Top with good quality shredded Parmesan cheese or Asiago .