Kick Butt Spaghetti Sauce (Out of a Jar!)

"This is a conncoction I came up with tonight; I used hints and some 'secret' ingredients I've gathered from here and there. My husband could not believe it was out a jar - I had to show him the jar to prove it. Go ahead and try this...you know you want to and believe me, I'll never tell it started with a jar!! Enjoy!"
 
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Ready In:
20mins
Ingredients:
10
Serves:
6
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ingredients

  • 1 12 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 12 cup chopped onion
  • 12 cup sliced mushrooms
  • 1 tablespoon minced garlic
  • 26 ounces spaghetti sauce
  • 1 teaspoon fennel
  • 2 teaspoons italian seasoning
  • 12 teaspoon dried oregano
  • salt & pepper, to taste
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directions

  • In a large skillet or saucepan, melt butter with olive oil over medium-low heat.
  • Add chopped onion, mushrooms and garlic; saute until soft.
  • Add spaghetti sauce and seasonings, stir well.
  • Simmer over low heat for at least 10 minutes, but the longer the better. Remember to stir occasionally to make sure it doesn't scorch.
  • Serve over cooked spaghetti.

Questions & Replies

  1. The recipe calls for 1 tsp fennel. I must assume fresh however the green "leafy" part or the white part. Since a fennel bulb is fairly large to just use 1 tsp can something be substituted? Seeds?
     
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Reviews

  1. Why do people post how much they like the recipe but yet they list a bunch of things they changed. Then it's not the original recipe. Why not just say I like to use this recipe as a starting baseptic but I had to kick it up big time to enjoy it. Be honest.
     
  2. We enjoyed this yummy spaghetti sauce. I made a few changes to suit our personal tastes. I browned 1-lb. of crumbled Italian sausage and added 1 chopped bell pepper to the onions, mushrooms, and garlic. Since we like lots of vegetables in our sauce, I doubled the amounts of onion and mushrooms used. Also, since jars of spaghetti sauce are now 24-oz. instead of 26-oz., I added an 8-oz. can of tomato sauce. I served this over whole-wheat spaghetti and topped it with lots of fresh grated Parmesan cheese. Yum!! Thank you for sharing!<br/>**Made for Spring 2013 PAC**
     
  3. Great Name, and great recipe. Like the other reviewers I always doctor up jarred purchased sauce. But this recipe is really special. The fennel is a great addition I never would have thought of. Made for Fall PAC 2012.
     
  4. Yes, I find that jarred spaghetti sauce needs to be kicked up a little, as well. This is a great combination of flavorful ingredients that makes the sauce taste homemade.
     
  5. I always like to jazz up my bottled spaghetti sauce as well with about the same ingredients except that i add a generous dose of parmesan cheese, a spoonful of paprika, chicken or beef bullion and a bit of ketchup and/or sugar. Turns out perfect and smells delicious while cooking.
     
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Tweaks

  1. 1 small can of anchovies in olive oil really adds a terrific flavor!
     

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

Greetings from Colorado! I'm originally from Nebraska and moved to Colorado 10 years ago. I'm married to a great guy for 11 years and we have a beautiful daughter who keeps us busy and young! <br> <br>I work as a family law paralegal, specializing in divorces, custody, child support issues. My job can be emotionally demanding but it also helps me to remember to be so very grateful for my marriage and family. <br> <br>I learned to cook from my mom and grandma. I'm the youngest of five kids and my older sisters were both in college by the time I was 5 years old. So I helped Mom a lot fixing supper for my two brothers and Dad. One summer I was obsessed with angel food cake - I think I made at least one (if not 2 or 3!) a week. Angel food with fruit, angel food with frosting, angel food with powdered sugar, angel food tinted with food coloring - I wouldn't recommend this as mine came out looking more like it had been dunked in a paint bucket!! One time my mom was out of town and I made meatloaf for dinner for one brother and my dad. I got everything together and put the meatloaf on a meat rack. To my horror, the meatloaf sank and baked around the meat rake! I was all of 12, maybe 13 and I didn't know what to do. It was my first lesson in the show must go on sometimes and we ate the meatloaf from around the rack. My most notable cooking memory as an adult is when I tried to make a lemon pie - it turned out to be more like lemon soup with the pie crust floating around like crackers!! My dad grabbed a bowl and a ladle and declared it the best lemon dessert soup he'd ever had! My dad passed away in 2002 and you can imagine how much I miss him. <br> <br>Cooking has paid off for me though. The first meal I made for my dh when we were dating was meatloaf (without using a meat rack!) He says that he knew after tasting my meatloaf he'd better marry me quick before I got away...with the recipe!! Just to seal the deal, I also woo'd him with a crockpot pot roast. We were married 9 months later and here we are 11 YEARS later. However, one morning I was running late to work and asked him to throw the pot roast, cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix in the crockpot. He called me at work that afternoon and asked me what else I had done to the pot roast. I told him I hadn't touched it, was something wrong? Dh told me he has tasted it and it was the most wonderful, out of this world pot roast ever! Then he paused and said, It that ALL you do - just meat, a can of soup and soup mix?!?!?!?! Even I can do that!!! Uh-oh. Our running joke now is that I better hide the meatoaf recipe since he already has the pot roast recipe and if he gets the other, he won't have a reason to stay married to me! LOL Dh also likes to remind him that I really do need him - he does the dishes!!! (Which is more true than I would like to admit!!!)
 
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