Make this homemade marinara sauce recipe once, and you'll never get the store-bought kind again! It's simple to make, and it has a rich tomato flavor.
Buying marinara sauce is easy, but I’ll let you in on a secret: so is making your own!
Meet my go-to homemade marinara sauce recipe. It’s simple to make – all you need are 10 pantry ingredients and 30 minutes – and it tastes immeasurably better than any kind I’ve found in a jar. Its base is canned crushed tomatoes with their juices, which I simmer with sautéed shallot and garlic for depth of flavor. Red pepper flakes give it a touch of heat, and dried oregano adds Italian flair. Balsamic vinegar makes it nice and tangy, while salt and pepper and a bit of sugar make all the flavors pop.
This sauce is easy enough to whip up on a weeknight, but it’s also a great recipe to make in advance. Store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze it for up to a few months! I like to keep a stash on hand for anytime a spaghetti or lasagna craving strikes. 🙂
How to Make Marinara Sauce
Making this marinara sauce recipe is simple! Here’s what you need to do:
- First, sauté the shallot and garlic in a saucepan with olive oil, salt, and pepper until they become soft and translucent.
- Then, simmer the sauce. Add 28 ounces of crushed tomatoes and their juices (use San Marzano tomatoes if you can!), balsamic vinegar, dried oregano, red pepper flakes, and a dash of cane sugar. Cover the sauce with a lid and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes, giving it a good stir every now and then, until it’s thickened.
That’s it! Season to taste and enjoy.
Find the complete recipe with measurements below.
How to Use This Marinara Sauce Recipe
I’m sure you already have a few favorite ways to use marinara sauce, but if you’re looking for more, I’ve got you covered! You can’t go wrong with any of these:
- Spoon it over pasta, polenta, zucchini noodles, or spaghetti squash for a simple meal. Top it off with fresh basil leaves and a shower of grated Parmesan cheese. Vegan Parmesan would be delicious here too!
- Use it as the pasta sauce for a cozy baked pasta dish, like my baked ziti, lasagna, or stuffed shells.
- Bake it into my eggplant Parmesan or eggplant rollatini. I love homemade marinara sauce with my air fryer eggplant too.
- Sub it in for pizza sauce on any homemade pizza.
- Use it as spaghetti sauce with cooked pasta and vegan meatballs. Or make meatball sandwiches!
- Serve it as a dipping sauce with crispy air fryer zucchini or baked zucchini chips.
What are your favorite ways to use homemade marinara sauce? Let me know in the comments!
More Favorite Homemade Sauces
If you love this marinara recipe, try one of these delicious sauces next:
- Fresh Tomato Sauce
- Basil Pesto
- Kale Pesto
- Arugula Pesto
- Alfredo Sauce
- Vegan Alfredo Sauce
- Lemon Butter Sauce
Marinara Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- ⅓ cup finely minced shallot
- 2 large garlic cloves, finely minced
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon cane sugar
- ¼ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil in a medium pot over low heat. Add the shallot, garlic, salt, and a few grinds of black pepper and cook for 3 minutes, stirring often.
- Add the tomatoes and their juices, balsamic vinegar, cane sugar, oregano, and red pepper flakes. Cover and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste.
This was very quick and delicious. Made to use with your stuffed shells recipe.
Hi Julia, I’m glad you enjoyed the sauce!
Fantastic sauce. We added more garlic (of course) but were otherwise faithful to the recipe. Husband still raving about it.
Hi Beverly, love this! So glad the sauce was a hit.
This should have 1000 5-star reviews. I stopped buying expensive jarred stuff because this is so good and so easy!
I’m so glad you love the recipe!
Easy and very tasty! I did add a bit of red wine because I couldn’t help myself! ?
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
excellent! Thank you
So glad you enjoyed it!
This is an amazing recipe! I used it for eggplant parm and realized today when I pulled it up again to make chicken parm that I forgot to review it. This is definitely my go-to recipe for pasta sauce now
The only reason I made this recipe was to go with your zucchini noodle recipe. It turned out to be the best marinara sauce I’ve ever made!
I used date sugar instead of cane sugar. This is a definite keeper!
Hiya – just wondering how long this sauce will keep and would it be best kept in the fridge?
About a week in the fridge, you can freeze it after that!
Is there a good substitute for sugar. I’m no white sugar and wondered if its necessary to use it in the marinara recipe? Maybe a little raw honey could work. Thank you & love your easy vegan recipes.
Hi Susan, sometimes tomatoes can be tart, so it helps balance the flavor. You can skip it altogether or add some honey, to taste, if you’d like.
This is a general question regarding eggplant. Do you recommend soaking eggplant slices prior to slicing for aggplant parmesan? I am going to try cooking eggplant for the first time & am so anxious to try your rendition of your mother’s baked eggplant parm. Thank you.
Perfect. Delicious. Easy to make.
I’ll keep making it! Thanks for the recipe (-;
First time making homemade sauce. Made as directed except used whole canned tomatoes and didn’t have oregano so I omitted that. This was soo easy and delicious. Will be making often. Thank you
Hi Judy, I’m so glad you enjoyed the sauce!
So excited to try this tonight. How would I make enough to use in your baked ziti recipe? That one calls for 4 cups sauce, do you have a recipe conversion?
Hi Elle, this yield will be close to the 4 cups, I’d use this whole marinara recipe in the baked ziti. I hope you enjoy!
Hi! I am trying out this recipe with homemade pasta (the recipe from this website). Is the shallot necessary in the sauce recipe?
also do u have any tips on making sure the pasta doesn’t stick togther?
haha thanks!
Hi Sandy, yep, the shallot is necessary for the flavor in the sauce.
For the pasta – just be sure to very liberally flour the pasta sheets and it’ll stick together less. I hope you enjoy!
Since it’s summer, & I have a large amount of tomatoes from my garden, how many tomatoes would one use? Thanks!
I have the same question! I might try and just substitute the same amount of canned with my fresh tomatoes.
Hi Kathryn and Amber – yep, you can use fresh tomatoes. Depending on what type and how watery they are, you may want to simmer a little bit longer. If you don’t like the texture of the skins in the sauce you might want to remove the skins first, or run through a strainer or food mill at the end (the skins don’t really bother me, but they do some). Hope that helps!
I typically remove the skins! Thanks for the recommendation! Making a batch tonight:)
What are the steps if using fresh tomatoes? We have a ton of tomatoes in the garden that I will be using.
Yahoooeeee! This is so good! I rarely follow recipes exactly, but I wanted to do it this time so I would have a baseline to adjust for my own taste – No changes needed at all, thank you so much. My husband said it was better than his dad’s sauce – I am so happy 🙂
Hi Gina! I’m so glad you both loved it – ha ha, that’s the biggest compliment 🙂
This is my favorite homemade marinara sauce and so easy. My husband loved it too! Used it with your delicious lasagna recipe. Also I love how it is so much cheaper than buying prepared marinara sauce!
From the color, it is very beautiful. The taste of tomatoes is especially loved by my children.
thank you, love how few ingredients your recipe has compared to the list in any store brand I’ve seen, love making this fresh, much appreciated