This easy marinara sauce is a staple around my home. When I was growing up my family never used the word marinara, it was just called sucu (I’m not sure if that word is something in just my family or a dialect of Sicily where my family is from. It is pronounced sue-qoo). I have no idea what that exactly means, but in the Di Martino/La Fornara home that meant a tomato sauce that would go on pasta, chicken, eggplant, and brigole, a meat rolled with all kinds of wonderful things in the middle cooked in sucu. Oh, and of course, fresh baked bread, dipped in sucu. When my mother wasn’t looking, my dad and I would sneak in to the kitchen, tear off a piece of bread and dunk it in to the large pot of hot sucu. I tell you nothing tastes better, try it.
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, diced
- 3 14.5 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 2 14.5 oz can of water
- 1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 1 pinch of red pepper flakes - optional
- In a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat.
- Add garlic and onions and sauté about 10 minutes, until soft.
- Add tomatoes, water and tomato paste to the saucepan, stir to combine
- Add bay leaf, pepper, salt, sugar, oregano, red pepper flakes and basil
- Simmer over low/medium heat, for 45 minutes, stirring every once in a while
- Remove bay leaf and discard
- With and immersion blender or counter blender, blend sauce until smooth
- Place sauce back in saucepan over low heat for an additional 30 minutes
- Season with more salt and pepper, if needed
This sauce may be frozen, so you have it on hand for a quick easy meal.
Tastes great with any pasta dish, eggplant, chicken parmesan, lasagna and so much more… Don’t forget to dip the bread!
*The sugar takes away the acid in the can tomatoes. If I were making this with fresh tomatoes I would not use the sugar.
Enjoy~