This was my attempt at making Nonni’s meat sauce, which I grew up eating with her pasta and meatballs. I have a paleo version of her meatballs posted, and I add a few of them to the sauce for flavor. She also adds 1/2 cup of grated parmesean or romano cheese, but I opted to make this dairy free, and I was still happy with the results.
The sauce cooked down and really concentrated the tomato flavor, so you could skip the tomato paste, or water it down with water, stock, or wine. However, the concentrated flavor actually ended up being a good thing, since zoodles give off water when cooked. So, when I sauteed Non’s sauce and zoodles together the result was perfect.
Nonni's Sauce
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Author: Lauren Bolanos
Serves: 6
Ingredients
- 2 country style pork ribs
- 3 sweet Italian sausages
- 3 cloves of minced garlic
- 3-5 homemade paleo meatballs
- 1 tsp of honey
- 1 tbsp of tomato paste
- 2 cans of tomato puree
- 1 white onion chopped
- chopped parsley (garnish)
- parsley (a handful including stem)
- ½ tsp sea salt or to taste
- a few grinds of fresh ground pepper or to taste
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- ½ cup of water
Instructions
- In a large pot or dutch oven, saute chopped onions in olive oil for a few minutes on medium low heat.
- Then, add to pot minced garlic and stir for a few minutes.
- Add in country style ribs and sweet italian sausage and brown sides slightly, when finished browning turn heat to low.
- Then add two cans of tomato puree.
- Add ¼ cup of water to each can of empty tomato puree, swish it around, to get out all tomato puree and add it to the pot.
- Add tomato paste, honey, and a handful of parsley with stem and leaves to pot. Parsley will be fished out later.
- Cook on low for 1.5 hours minimum. The longer you cook it the thicker the sauce will get. 2 hours of cooking time is ideal.
- Salt and pepper to taste while cooking.
- When finished, turn off heat and let it come to room temperature before storing it.
- Before serving it, fish out parsley.