by Ellie Commons

Created on: June 06, 2010   Last Updated: September 21, 2010

The following recipe is a time tested spaghetti sauce recipe from my kitchen to yours that can be whipped up on a budget and is hearty and filling enough for a manly bowl of spaghetti – my husband approves! A suggestion would be even to freeze the sauce. You can prep the meat for it before you freeze the sauce, or when you cook the actual dinner, but if you foresee having a lot of leftovers, I would wait to cook the meat until the night of, because you don’t want meat to be cooked and cooled too many times. I don’t always find it necessary to freeze the sauce because it mixes up so quickly.  It serves about 4.

Ingredients:

1 lb. hamburger meat

1 can spaghetti sauce (26 oz. of any variety.)

1 can medium black olives

1 can mushrooms (The small 6.5 oz. can.)

1/4 c. chopped yellow onion

1 tsp. minced garlic

Pepper to taste. (I use about 1/2 tsp.)

Directions:

Cook hamburger meat, drain fat, and set to the side.

Drain olives and mushrooms. Slice or chop the olives. You can chop the mushrooms or leave them as they were.

Finely chop onions and garlic or use pre-minced garlic.

In a small bowl, mix sauce, olives, mushrooms, onions, garlic, and pepper.

Mix in hamburger meat and stir well.

If you are freezing, pour into quart freezer bags. Make sure to label and date.

If you are serving, place in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high, with a lid, for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Stir and serve.

Tips:

If you freeze it, when you are thawing, place the baggie in a small container, just in the rare even that your baggie fails you while defrosting. Freezer safe containers work best if you have them.

If you are freezing, let thaw for at least a day. Pour into a microwave safe dish and cook for increments of 30 seconds to 1 minute, stirring frequently until at desired temperature.

You can use whole canned mushrooms, or pieces and stems canned mushrooms. Personally, I get quite a few whole mushrooms in the pieces cans, and they are extremely cheaper

Fresh mushrooms would also work nicely.

Any variety of onion will do in the recipe.

The spaghetti sauce we always use is Hunt’s Classic Italian Garlic and Herb.

Don’t forget the cheese!

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