Marinara

I am such a big fan of food prepping and I honestly don't know how I could function during the week without prepping at least some of our meals ahead of time - especially during my busy baking season.  I typically do my grocery shopping on Monday morning and then I set aside a couple of hours to prep our food for the week.  It's amazing how much time it saves me to have everything prepped and ready to heat and eat at dinner time.  I feel like food prepping helps us to eat healthier too because I'm less tempted to serve something unhealthy just because it's quick when I have meals prepped and ready to pull out of the frig or the freezer.  

One of the things that I ALWAYS keep on hand as a meal prep basic is homemade marinara.  Maybe it's my Italian roots but I just can't seem to live without it.  Whether I'm spooning it over a meatball sub, baking it with my eggplant parmesan, serving it on top of chicken parmesan or just mixing it into a giant bowl of pasta - a great marinara sauce is essential.  This deep rich marinara sauce bumps up the flavor of anything that you put it on.  

Marinara
1/4 cup oil
1 cup onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
1 Tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon oregano
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 Tablespoon butter
2 sprigs fresh basil

Heat oil in Dutch oven.  Add onion and garlic and cook 20 minutes.  

Add tomatoes, sugar, salt, oregano, salt and soy sauce. Bring to a simmer. 

Place in oven and bake 6 hours at 300.

Remove from oven and stir in butter.

Stir in basil and let stand 20 minutes. 

Talk about an easy meal.  Boil some pasta noodles and voila - a delicious, homemade dinner is served.  

This is meal prepping to the extreme because this recipe makes a whole lot of sauce. I like to portion out the sauce into small tupperware containers and freeze them.  If your anything like me - you'll be glad that you have some extra on hand during the busy holiday season.  

​Ciao!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe