Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with Quinoa

One of our boys favorite dishes is pasta. They love all shapes, colors and sizes of it. They would eat it every day if they could. Here's one a great meatless recipe for spaghetti sauce that we love. It uses red quinoa instead of meat.

I love to use my home-canned crushed tomatoes in this recipe. I haven't post a lot of sauces on this blog, but we love to make homemade sauces with our home-canned tomatoes. The main reason I haven't posted them is because we often don't measure ingredients so they are hard to replicate.

Well guess what? I actually measured this time! And guess what else? I'm glad I did because this was a phenomenal sauce. Loved it so much. And you will too. And don't worry if you don't can your own tomatoes yet...I made the sauce again using cans of diced tomatoes from the store and it also turned out wonderful so you've got no excuses. Go make it.

And I just need to say, isn't it lovely that it makes about the same amount as a 28-oz. jar spaghetti sauce? I know. I've looked for this recipe my whole life too. Well, just about...

Feel free to double or triple it to your hearts content. It would be so convenient to make in a big batch, freeze and reheat for a quick meal. Not like the 20 minutes it takes to cook it is not already a quick meal, but I'm always looking for shortcuts to the shortcuts.

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with Quinoa

Printable Recipe

*Makes about 3 cups or the equivalent of 1 28-oz. jar spaghetti sauce

INGREDIENTS:

1 Quart crushed tomatoes or 2 16-oz. cans crushed or diced tomatoes

1 large clove garlic, minced

3/4 tsp. dried oregano

3/4 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 8-oz. can tomato sauce (or use the ingredients from dried tomato powder)

1/4 cup red quinoa, uncooked

DIRECTIONS:

In a blender, place the tomatoes, minced garlic, dried oregano, dried basil, sugar, salt, and black pepper and blend until smooth. Place blended sauce into a large saucepan and add the tomato sauce and red quinoa. Heat to a simmer over medium heat. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until quinoa is cooked. You can tell when the quinoa is cooked because it displays a little white thread that curls around it. Serve over hot pasta or in a recipe that requires a 28-oz. jar of spaghetti sauce.

*Recipe Source: healthyfamilycookin.blogspot.com