Simple Italian-Style Meat Sauce

Name: Simple Italian-Style Meat Sauce
Yield: Serves 8 to 12 (Makes about 6 cups sauce, enough for 2 lbs pasta)
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 4 ounces, white mushrooms, trimmed and broken into rough pieces; 1 slice, hearty white sandwich bread, torn into quarters; 2 tablespoons, whole milk; 1/2 teaspoon, table salt; 1/2 teaspoon, black pepper; 1 pound, 85 percent lean ground beef; 1 tablespoon, olive oil; 1 large, onion, chopped fine; 6 , garlic cloves, minced; 1 tablespoon, tomato paste; 1/4 teaspoon, red pepper flakes; 1 , (14.5-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained with 1/4 cup juice reserved; 1 tablespoon, minced fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried; 1 , (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes; 1/4 cup, grated Parmesan cheese

18 comments

Appears in Cook's Illustrated March/April 2008, America's Test Kitchen TV

In this country, meat sauce usually means a hastily made dish with rubbery ground beef and no flavor. We wanted something simple—but a lot better.

SERVES8 to 12 (Makes about 6 cups sauce, enough for 2 lbs pasta)

TIME1¼ hours

has video

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS

For a quick meat sauce recipe that tasted as if it had simmered for a good portion of the day, we discovered a few tricks: Instead of browning the meat, we browned mushrooms to give the sauce browned flavor without drying it out; we used a ...

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