Super Simple Marinara Sauce
This marinara sauce recipe is the best! It's so easy to make with just 5 basic ingredients and 45 minutes on the stove. No chopping required! This healthy homemade marinara will become your family's favorite.
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on September 5, 2024
Meet the marinara sauce recipe of my dreams! I’ve always been intimidated by marinara, maybe because I love it so much that I was afraid of messing it up. I finally faced my fears and tried making marinara every which way. This version is my favorite, no contest.
This homemade marinara sauce offers rich and lively tomato flavor. You’ll need only five basic pantry ingredients to make this delicious marinara sauce: good canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, dried oregano and olive oil. That’s it!
This marinara is exceptionally easy to make, too, so it’s perfect for busy weeknights. You don’t even have to chop the onion and garlic. Yep, that’s right—just crank open a can of tomatoes, halve an onion and peel some garlic. You’re ready to go!
This sauce offers lovely, authentic Italian flavor after a 45-minute simmer. I tried to take shortcuts to make it even faster, but no amount of tomato paste, spices, salt or sugar will make up for lost time.
Bottom line: It’s impossible to achieve enchanting, long-simmered marinara flavor in under 45 minutes. So throw those ingredients in a pot, pour yourself a glass of wine and boil water for pasta. Dinner is almost ready.
After trying many variations on marinara sauce, I adapted this recipe from Deb’s tomato sauce with onion and butter, which was originally sourced from Marcella Hazan’s 1992 cookbook, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
I love that tomato sauce, but it doesn’t pass for marinara since it’s missing herbs, garlic and olive oil. So, I added dried oregano and two whole cloves of garlic (which you’ll smash against the side of the pan at the end).
I traded a reasonable amount of olive oil for the butter (you really don’t need to use a ton of olive oil here for rich flavor). I also added a pinch of red pepper flakes for a little kick, but those are optional.
Why is this the best marinara sauce?
Six reasons to love this recipe:
- This marinara sauce recipe requires 5 basic ingredients and yields rich, authentic marinara flavor.
- It’s super easy to make—no chopping required.
- Unlike most store-bought sauces, this marinara is free of added sugar.
- You can load up your pasta with as much of this wholesome sauce as you’d like. Tomatoes are good for you!
- The recipe yields two cups of sauce and freezes well, so you might as well double the recipe. Just cook it in a bigger pot.
- This marinara also makes an incredible pizza sauce. I made pizza with it and my friend remarked that it tastes like real-deal Italian pizza.
Please let me know in the comments how you like this sauce! It’s a new staple in my kitchen, and I hope it becomes a go-to recipe for you as well.
Craving more classic Italian recipes? Don’t miss these:
- Basil Pesto
- Vegetable Lasagna
- Hearty Spaghetti with Lentils & Marinara Sauce
- Baked Ziti with Roasted Vegetables
- Classic Minestrone Soup
- Italian Chopped Salad
Watch How to Make Marinara Sauce
Super Simple Marinara Sauce
This marinara sauce recipe is the best! You’ll only need 5 basic ingredients, and it’s so easy to make. No chopping required! Recipe yields 2 cups sauce (enough for 8 to 16 ounces pasta, depending on how saucy you like it); double if desired.
Ingredients
- 1 large can (28 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes*
- 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and halved
- 2 large cloves garlic, peeled but left whole
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional, omit if sensitive to spice)
- Salt, to taste (if necessary)
- Optional, for serving: Cooked pasta, grated Parmesan cheese or vegan Parmesan, chopped fresh basil, additional olive oil
Instructions
- In a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the tomatoes (with their juices), halved onion, garlic cloves, olive oil, oregano and red pepper flakes (if using).
- Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium-high heat, then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until droplets of oil float free of the tomatoes. Stir occasionally, and use a sturdy wooden spoon to crush the tomatoes against the side of the pot after the sauce has cooked for about 15 minutes.
- Remove the pot from the heat and discard the onion. Smash the garlic cloves against the side of the pot with a fork, then stir the smashed garlic into the sauce. Do the same with any tiny onion pieces you might find. Use the wooden spoon to crush the tomatoes to your liking (you can blend this sauce smooth with an immersion blender or stand blender, if desired).
- Add salt, to taste (the tomatoes are already pretty salty, so you might just need a pinch). Serve warm. This sauce keeps well, covered and refrigerated, for up to 4 days. Freeze it for up to 6 months.
Notes
*Tomato note: Using high quality tomatoes is key here. I recommend Muir Glen tomatoes. They’re organic and the cans are BPA-free.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
Thats 8 ingredients not 5 ingredients
If you find that the inclusion of three additional (optional) ingredients challenges your culinary capability, then I suggest that you purchase a jar of ready-made, mass-produced tomato sauce!
Lol
I don’t think your math is mathing.
There are 5 ingredients.
While there are additional optional ingredients, that’s simply what they are – optional.
Your comment isn’t particularly helpful.
You’re still learning about cooking, that’s wonderful! Did you enjoy the results? I myself left out the red pepper flakes and salt, and I enjoyed it mixed in with angel hair pasta. I would have also enjoyed parmesan, but didn’t have any. The sauce was still delicious!
Always when I use fresh or canned tomatoes, I add half a teaspoonof sugar to avoid heartburn. About 40 years ago an Italian woman who was a marvellous cook, gave me that advise.
seriously you had to point that out – and i only count 7 ingredients *if* you add the red pepper flakes – but, hey, who’s counting… and i don’t math well so i might be wrong here – who cares!
This is delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe. I loved it with the Pasta alla Norma.
I have used this recipe several times and my husband and I love it. Easy to freeze.
Can you add mushrooms and peppers to this recipe?
Both my husband and I enjoyed the marinara sauce. I did add a pinch of sugar to soften the taste but followed the rest of the recipe.
Paired it with turkey meatballs and pasta. Great weekday meal.
Any suggestions on how to tweak this recipe to using fresh tomatoes instead of canned? I know how to peel tomatoes but this recipe also calls for the juice that comes with canned tomatoes. I’m very new to cooking but would prefer to use fresh tomatoes if possible.
IF, you have great, RIPE tomatoes, those will usually be juice enough. We grow our own, and use those for the sauce. AMAZING :) Also, if you have fresh oregano, even better. Hard to come by though, unless you grow your own. For the red pepper flakes, try Aleppo pepper flakes!
Hi! If I’m blending the sauce, should I do that after the 45-minute simmer or somewhere during the process?
Hi Sydney, I would blend at the end of the simmer, that way it has time to break down as it cooks first.
I have now made this four times in the past month – Twice on Chicken Parmesan with Spaghetti, once with just spaghetti, and once on pizza. It is excellent. I used Cento San Marzano Peeled Tomatoes in puree. I’m not going to lie, but I had to add salt and sugar to make it our own. I kept adding trace amounts until I reached perfection at 1 1/4 teaspoons salt and 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar. This is now the sauce that ends our decades long search for a marinara and a pizza sauce that we like.
Fabulous !
Use Muir Glen tomatoes if you possibly can! I tried this twice. The first time, I didn’t see the recommendation for Muir Glen tomatoes and used a San Marzano Italian variety I found at my grocery store. The sauce under-salted (my fault) but also fairly bland overall, and a bit on the bitter side. I tried again with Muir Glen tomatoes, two extra garlic cloves (I also crushed them before adding), a more flavorful olive oil, and more salt (I added about a 1/2 tsp at the very beginning). Both times I used a pinch of red pepper flakes and blended after cooking. The second time the sauce was much more flavorful and just sweet enough. This recipe is great, but only if you start with the right tomatoes!
This sauce is wonderful.
It is so simple, it is hard to believe it is so good!
My go to sauce now.
Made this before and love it, I crushed the tomatoes with my hands before cooking. I am going to make it again this week and double the batch then freeze it as I live alone (Senior).
Hey Kate: I am making another batch and tripled it this time. I added some of those mini bell pepper and I put them and the onion in my small processor so i get the flavour without the fuss of extracting the bigger pieces. My pot is so full of all that tomato goodness. I have been cooking for almost 70 years and have a million recipes.
Thanks for this one and I am having fun playing with it.
Jackie Deveau
I used Pomi tomatoes this was a no for me. I’ll try with the others…
So easy and so delicious. My family loves this marinara sauce!
The simplicity of your sauce makes it simply the best
This may have been asked already, but does anyone have a suggestion for what to do with the onions after removing them from the sauce? I’d like to be able to enjoy those as well instead of discarding them.
Thank you so much for sharing this !! Perfect sauce !
Where does the olive oil come in?
Hi Rebecca, you add the oil in step 1.
Hi- I am interested in trying this sauce. My husband has an onion allergy, has anyone made it without onions? If so, how was it? Did you substitute anything in place of the onions? Thanks in advance.
Hi Maureen, you could make it without onions, or substitute sometime like shallots if those don’t trigger an allergic reaction.
The only change I made was the use of fresh tomatoes, weighed to 28oz after I peeled them. I cooked it a little longer to make it thicker. I love playing with different herbs, so I might make some variations with other herbs. Very easy and yummy recipe. I used it for my chicken parm.