Marinara Sauce
Learn how to make homemade marinara sauce in only 2 minutes with just a few simple ingredients. This simple, healthy recipe tastes way better than any Italian sauce you can buy in a jar.

What we love about this marinara sauce
- This marinara sauce is such a simple recipe, once you make it yourself you probably won’t buy store bought again.
- This 2 minute marinara sauce is perfect for whenever you’ve failed to prep a recipe for dinner, or forgotten to take something out of the freezer for the night.
- We choose this meal over takeout all the time, in both of our house – and its a meal that everyone loves. Sometimes, it is even requested!

Here’s what you’ll need to make it
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Ingredients you might need to pick up
- Crushed tomatoes – Crushed tomatoes offer a perfect balance between the smoothness of tomato sauce and the chunkiness of diced tomatoes. We love using crushed tomatoes for most of our tomato based sauces.
- Garlic – Fresh garlic or pre minced garlic will work for this recipe. But, if you can press your own garlic for this sauce, you should – it has the best flavor.
- Basil and parsley – A classic yet simple combination of Italian herbs, perfect for this sauce. You could substitute an Italian seasoning blend for both. You could also add some fresh herbs for garnish if you want to make your sauce a bit fancier.
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions listed below are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.

How to make this homemade marinara sauce
Simmer the garlic. Add olive oil to a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and crushed red peppers, if using, and sauté until the garlic is fragrant. This should take only about 30 seconds to 1 minute, and you will be able to smell the garlic.
Cook the tomatoes. Add the remaining ingredients to the saucepan. Stir to combine and continue to cook until the tomatoes are heated through. Simmer until ready to use, or remove from heat. If you are not planning to use the sauce right away, transfer it to an airtight container and refrigerate it.

Everything you need to know about marinara sauce
There really isn’t any difference. Marinara is a type of spaghetti sauce, but spaghetti sauce could also refer to sauces like a ragu or meat sauce.
This type of marinara sauce will work on literally any pasta you choose.
You just need to cook it long enough to infuse your tomatoes with the flavors of your other ingredients (like basil and garlic). We recommend at least 2 minutes, but if you have more time, feel free to simmer the sauce a bit longer on low.

More pasta sauce recipes you will love
Other Italian pasta recipes you should try
- One pot pasta puttanesca
- Bucatini all’amatriciana
- Italian sausage and peppers pasta
- Bucatini cacio e pepe

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Marinara Sauce
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
Description
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic (2 cloves)
- 1 28- ounce cans crushed tomatoes
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
Instructions
- In a saucepan, heat olive oil and minced garlic over medium heat.
- Once garlic is fragrant, allow it to cook for about 30 seconds.
- Add remaining ingredients, stirring to combine.
- Continue cooking until tomatoes are heated through. Simmer until ready to use.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Category: Sauce
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 47
- Sugar: 4.4 g
- Sodium: 184.7 mg
- Fat: 2 g
- Saturated Fat: 0.3 g
- Carbohydrates: 7.4 g
- Fiber: 1.9 g
- Protein: 1.7 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg

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