Homemade Marinara Sauce 10 Minute Recipe – Must Love Home (2024)

Homemade Marinara Sauce is made easy in only 10 minutes with this recipe of basic pantry ingredients of tomatoes, garlic and spices. Perfect for pizza, pasta and dipping.

Do you have a recipe that you make so often that you don’t need to look at the ingredients or amounts anymore? For me, this is one of those old family recipes that has become so second nature I didn’t think to write about it until now.

For the last year, I have been watching my little grandson a few days a week and life has gotten a little crazy at mi casa. Because of this, my 30 Minute Meal and Slow Cooker recipes are getting such a daily work-out I have started a new 30 Minute Meal Italian-American series of recipes. This amazing sauce is the basis for a few of them!

With hurried schedules and the usual daily chaos, it’s easy to throw homemade out the window in favor of the convenience of jarred anything. And we all know what that means….preservatives, too much fat and sodium and lots of added sugar. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In 10 minutes, you can have a huge amount of Homemade Marinara Sauce ready and waiting to be eaten as-is or dressed up with lots of veggies and cooked meat. Toss it with pasta or healthy grains and you have a quick and delicious main dish ready to be devoured.

Here is what I used to make my 10 Minute Homemade Marinara Sauce. You might notice (of course now that I point it out you will!) the sugar, salt and pepper are missing from the photo. They sit on my counter and I use them all the time…so I didn’t even think about them when I snapped this photo. Oops, my bad.

What Kind of Canned Tomatoes Should I Use for Homemade Marinara Sauce?

Tomato puree might feel like the tomato of choice for a quick, 10 minute recipe but I recommend using crushed tomatoes for this Homemade Marinara Sauce. It is a mixture of diced tomatoes and tomato puree or paste, so you get both the chunks of diced for fresher flavor and the deep richness of paste. I have made this recipe with stewed tomatoes, but find that they don’t break down to a saucy consistency on their own for this fast recipe. They will need to be broken up with a spoon during cooking. But if you prefer a chunkier sauce then they are fine.

Really, any canned tomatoes you have in your pantry can be used in a pinch. You just may need to break them up manually to get the sauce consistency that you want. This recipe was created using plain canned tomatoes, so you may not get the same results if you use a canned tomato variety that has flavorings or herbs already added.

One of the keys to making a simple sauce with simple ingredients is making sure to use good quality ingredients. I always say this, but the best results start with quality ingredients, so use the best you can afford.

Recipes for using this Homemade Marinara Sauce:

• One Skillet Chicken Parmesan
• Easy Crock Pot Spaghetti

This site may contain affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links, which helps to keep this content free.

Helpful Tools and Ingredients:

• 3 Quart Saucepan – I love this saucepan! It has a stay-cool handle so you don’t need oven or silicone mitts to handle it.
• Italian seasoning – you can buy it at most grocery stores, but this is my favorite, high quality brand.
• Freezer Safe Mason Jars – perfect for storing extra leftovers.