Italian Sausage Simmering in Marinara Sauce
Making a rich, flavorful pasta sauce with Italian sausage is easier than it might seem. You really only need two core components: a good marinara sauce and Italian sausage—sweet or hot, according to your taste.
Traditionally, many cooks brown sliced raw sausage directly in the pot they’ll use for the marinara. That approach works, but I’ve adopted a slightly more convenient method that reduces grease and makes meal planning simpler.
I prepare a large batch of basic marinara and use it across multiple meals. After serving the first portion with pasta, I divide the remaining sauce into meal-sized portions—usually 4 to 6 cups—and freeze them in zipper bags. When I want a pasta dish with meat, seafood, or vegetables, I simply thaw one portion and add the ingredients I want.
For sausage and marinara, I thaw the frozen sauce and bake the sausages in the oven while the sauce comes to temperature. Baking a pound of sausages (about 5–6 links) cooks them evenly and renders excess fat, which helps prevent a greasy sauce. Once the sausages are fully cooked, I slice them to the desired thickness and add them to the marinara.
After combining the sausage with the sauce, let it simmer gently for an hour or two. Slow cooking allows the sausage flavors to meld with the tomatoes and aromatics, producing a deeper, more cohesive sauce. If the sauce thickens more than you like during this time, stir in a little water to reach your preferred consistency.
This method yields a well-balanced Italian-style sauce with minimal hands-on time and useful leftovers. The oven-baked sausage keeps the sauce clean and flavorful, and the make-ahead marinara streamlines future meals—simply thaw, add your protein or vegetables, simmer, and serve.
After an hour or two of simmering, you’ll have a perfectly flavored sauce ready to serve over pasta, polenta, or your favorite accompaniment.