Easy Meat Sauce

This Easy Meat Sauce recipe is a healthy homemade sauce to go over your spaghetti or zucchini noodles. Made with ground beef, olives, and mushrooms in a tomato sauce that simmers to perfection, it's great for a simple weeknight dinner. Gluten free, paleo, and Whole30 too!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Diet Gluten Free

Keyword #meatsauce, #spaghetti, whole30

Prep Time 5

Cook Time 30

Total Time 35

Servings people

Calories 219kcal

Author Taryn Solie

Ingredients

1 pound ground beef
1 medium onion finely chopped (1.5-2 cups total)
2 garlic cloves pressed
4 cups plain tomato sauce (32 ounces)
1 bay leaf
1 large sprig thyme
½ tsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt plus more to taste
½ tsp pepper plus more to taste
8 oz canned sliced mushrooms
6 oz olives

Instructions

Items Needed

Large pan
Wooden spoon
Stovetop
Large sharp knife
Cutting board
Garlic press

Directions

Using the knife and cutting board, finely dice the onion. Set aside.
Place the pan on the stove top, turn the burner to medium heat and place the ground beef in the pan. Start to break it up with the wooden spoon as it cooks.
Combine the onion with the ground beef and cook until the ground beef is no longer pink and the onion is cooked through.
Add the pressed garlic and cook for 30 seconds, until fragrant.
Add the tomato sauce, spices, and salt and pepper and bring to a light boil. Once boiling, turn the heat down and simmer on low for 20 minutes.
While the sauce is simmering, drain the canned mushrooms and olives. Use the knife and cutting board to cut each olive into quarters.
After the sauce is done simmering, remove the bay leaf and thyme sprig. Add the quartered olives and drained canned mushrooms, stirring to heat through.
Taste to see if more salt and pepper is preferred. If so, add in ½ teaspoon at a time until sauce tastes as desired.
Serve over any type of pasta, or veggie noodles!

Notes

This recipe calls for tomato sauce. Not pizza sauce. Not diced tomatoes. Not pasta sauce. Just plain old tomato sauce.
Use the best tomato sauce you can get – it really will make a difference. From my experience, quality ingredients = way better flavor.
If you want to save yourself time, you can totally buy pre-made pasta sauce that’s already flavored and skip step 5, putting the sauce in at the same time as the olive and mushrooms. Just be sure and heat everything through.
Try using ground turkey instead of ground beef for a slightly lighter version of this recipe.
Love a spicier sauce? Add in ½ teaspoon of red chili pepper flakes to kick things up a notch.
If you don’t like olives or mushrooms (or both), you can just leave them out! I would recommend cutting back the amount of sauce though by at least 8 oz (unless you like a thinner sauce).

Nutrition