Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce for the Freezer
If you’ve got an abundance of fresh garden tomatoes, use them to make this wonderful Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce for the freezer. And you can make this flexible sauce recipe with all canned tomatoes if you don’t have fresh ones!
PIN Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce for the Freezer!
My garden tomatoes are in overdrive, and I’ve been frantically making things like roasted tomatoes, Gazpacho, and now Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce! And at this time of year I’m always happy when it’s time to make this sauce, my all-time favorite pasta sauce, and something I’ve been making for years.
If you come to my house in the winter and open the freezer, you’ll see square containers like the ones in the photo filled with this sauce. I’ll eat it served over Zucchini Noodles for a low-carb dinner, or with whole wheat spaghetti if I’m not as concerned about carbs, but this would be great with any type of pasta you prefer. And I never get tired of this favorite sauce.
What ingredients do you need for this recipe?
- very ripe tomatoes
- canned tomato sauce
- canned diced tomatoes
- Dried Basil (affiliate link)
- Dried Oregano (affiliate link)
- ground fennel (affiliate link)
- Minced Garlic (affiliate link)
- Bay Leaves (affiliate link)
- turkey Italian Sausage, or use pork sausage if you prefer
- Olive Oil (affiliate link)
- chopped fresh oregano
- chopped fresh basil
What makes this a flexible recipe?
This is a very flexible recipe. I always use fresh tomatoes, but if you don’t have them available, you can use canned, diced tomatoes and still get a good result. I use turkey Italian Sausage most often, but pork sausage would taste great too. I used a combination of dried and fresh herbs for more depth of flavor, but you could still make a pretty good sauce even if you only have dried herbs. I add a lot of fresh basil, but if you don’t have a good supply of fresh basil like I do, you could get by with a lot less. But please, please, please, don’t skip the ground fennel. That’s one of the things that makes this sauce over-the-top good.
Would you prefer Instant Pot Pasta Sauce?
Here’s an absolutely delicious Instant Pot Pasta Sauce with sausage, tomatoes, and herbs if you prefer that method!
Steps for Making Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes:
- Peel ripe tomatoes (instruction below), and chop into pieces. Roma tomatoes are best, but I roasted most of my Romas, so this batch of sauce was made with Celebrity tomatoes.(These photos are double the amounts of the recipe.)
- Add tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, dried basil, dried oregano, ground fennel, minced fresh garlic, and dried bay leaves to fresh tomatoes and simmer 1-2 hours.
- Brown turkey sausage well in a small amount of olive oil. Don’t rush this step. Add the sausage to the sauce, scraping out all the browned bits. Simmer 2-3 more hours.
- When sauce has thickened to desired consistency, add a generous amount of chopped fresh basil, a little fresh oregano, and a bit of olive oil and simmer 10-15 minutes more. This has reduced so much I actually put it into a smaller pan to get a better photo, and the flavor is great. If you’d like, divide the sauce into individual containers to freezer or to eat during the week!
More Recipes with Fresh Garden Tomatoes:
Tomato-Basil No-Cook Pasta Sauce
Middle Eastern Tomato Salad
Summer Tomato Salad with Goat Cheese
Weekend Food Prep:
This recipe has been added to a new category called Weekend Food Prep to help you find recipes you can prep or cook on the weekend and eat during the week!
Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce for the Freezer
Use your fresh garden tomatoes to make this Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce.
Ingredients
- 20 very ripe tomatoes, peeled and diced in pieces 1/2 to 1 inch
- two 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
- two 14.5 oz. cans diced tomatoes
- 3 T dried basil
- 3 T dried oregano
- 2 T ground fennel seed
- 3 T minced garlic or garlic puree
- 5 dried bay leaves
- two 19.5 oz pkg. turkey Italian Sausage (see notes)
- 1/4 cup olive oil plus 1-2 T for browning sausage
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh oregano (more or less, depending on what you have)
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil (more or less, depending on what you have)
Instructions
- To peel tomatoes: Bring a deep pot of water to a slight boil.
- Wash tomatoes, then cut a V into the top of each tomato, cutting away stem area.
- Put tomatoes with stem area removed into boiling water 1-2 minutes.
- Remove tomatoes to cutting board, and peel off skin, which should come off easily. If it doesn’t slip right off, leave tomatoes in boiling water a tiny bit longer.
- I do 4-5 tomatoes at a time, and usually let them cool for a minute or two before peeling them.
- Chop tomatoes and put in large heavy pot.
- Add tomato sauce, canned diced tomatoes, dried basil, dried oregano, ground fennel, minced garlic, and bay leaves and let sauce simmer 1-2 hours.
- Heat 1-2 T olive oil in a large frying pan.
- Squeeze sausage out of casing and brown, breaking up with heavy turner or potato masher, until sausage is well browned.
- Add browned sausage to sauce mixture and simmer 2-3 hours more.
- Add olive oil, fresh oregano and fresh basil to sauce and simmer 10-15 minutes.
- Let sauce cool before refrigerating or freezing.
- This sauce will keep for close to a year in the freezer if it is stored in a plastic container with a tight fitting lid.
Notes
You can use one package of sausage if you prefer. Use mild or hot sausage, whichever you like.
Nutritional information is based on 1/2 cup serving size.
This recipe created by Kalyn and has been made over and over for years!
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
20Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 125Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 29mgSodium: 278mgCarbohydrates: 8gFiber: 3gSugar: 4gProtein: 9g
Nutrition information is automatically calculated by the Recipe Plug-In I am using. I am not a nutritionist and cannot guarantee 100% accuracy, since many variables affect those calculations.
Low-Carb Diet / Low-Glycemic Diet / South Beach Diet Suggestions:
Every ingredient in this Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce is friendly for all phases of the original South Beach Diet and most other types of low-carb eating plans, although tomatoes definitely have some carbs. This would be perfect served over Zucchini Noodles for a low-carb meal or for South Beach Phase One.
Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Tomato Recipes or Sauces for more ideas like this one. Use the Diet Type Index to find recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You can also Follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.
Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This recipe was posted in 2006 and I’ve probably made it every year since then! It was last updated with more information in 2021.
39 Comments on “Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce for the Freezer”
Amber and Tom, sounds about right to me. Plus the measurements don’t have to be that exact for this.
Ya know, I just read that one 14.5 oz can is about 2 cups of tomatoes. So I think I’ll estimate about 3 tomatoes in a can.
I wonder if you’ll get this before I head to the store today. Approximately how many cans of diced tomatoes should I substitute for the fresh ones? I was thinking maybe 4?
Ian, thanks for letting me know you liked it. Your comment absolutely made my day. (P.S. Good Luck with the girl with the red hair.)
Hey Kalyn–I made this sauce yesterday, and followed your directions right down to the fennel. I couldn’t find whole Roma tomatos at the Whole Foods near me, so I went with the Muir Glen, as suggested. Results were astronomically good. Found your recipe through sheer chance when I googled “sausage marinara.” Your photos sold me, and I was completely rewarded for my faith. Had to impress a certain someone with long red hair yesterday, and did so handily thanks to your sauce. Bravo.
Anonymous I can’t think of anything that would make this taste sour, unless it was the type of tomatoes you used. You could add sugar if you’re not a SB dieter. Otherwise I have no idea why that might happen. Mine has never been sour at all.
I made the sauce last night, used chicken sausage instead, since I don’t eat turkey. I think my sauce turned out a little sour. I made the full recipie, can I add something else to it to decrease it’s sourness.
Kalyn,
I love using turkey sausage. My tomatoes are overflowing too so I have had a hard time even reading these WHB posts this week.
I hate to miss reading them all.
this sounds yummy! with all these great ideas for freezing veggies from our gardens, i’m going to have a bigger freezer! lol!
That looks like great sauce there! I always feel “rich” when I have a freezer full of homemade sauce. It tastes so much better than any bottled sauce from the store, and it saves the day when you exhausted.
What an awesome post! Gorgeous photos and I truly am jealous. Wish I had tomatoes growing in a garden.
Thanks for sharing and I love fennel so now I have something else to add it to.
As usual, your recipe looks good!
Paz
Gosh Kalyn, this looks amazing!
Genie, the fennel is a must!
Tanna, you must have that BLT, and yes, get enough to make some sauce too.
Mae, thanks. I’m sorry you don’t have tomatoes, but I don’t think they would survive mailing to Jersey too well.
Christine, thanks. I just saw your great crab cakes recipe in the post about 5 favorite things, which I’m thinking is a must try.
Bradley, thanks. And I’m excited you left a comment on the blog. I doubt the tomatoes would survive the trip by Fed Ex that well.
Joe, aren’t the Glen Muir tomatoes just awesome. I like their pizza sauce too.
I love Muir Glen tomatoes! Pretty much the only kind I use!
I love all of the pictures. They are great. Can you FedEx some of those tomatoes our way.
This sauce looks fabulous and I’m thinking will become my favorite. Thanks for the fennel tip and thanks for the recipe, Kalyn!
Excellent photograph, Kalyn. I really love the first top one! Beautiful. Enough to make me want to make some. Only thing is, i don’t have that much tomatoes 🙂
I love the turkey sausage – I get mine at Whole Foods and have some in the freezer. But my garden has no fressh tomatoes. Should be able to find some at one of the local markets about now. Maybe enough to make my BLT also.
Looks lovely.
Kalyn, this looks so very good…yum! I’ve never put fennel in my marinara, but I’m adding your recipe to the list to try, and will make sure that key ingredient is included.
Genie
The Inadvertent Gardener