Homemade Spaghetti Meat Sauce

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It’s so easy to make your own Homemade Spaghetti Meat Sauce at home! This recipe is filled ground beef and lots of veggies, plus it can be made ahead of time and frozen for a quick & easy weeknight dinner.

It’s so easy to make your own Homemade Spaghetti Meat Sauce at home! This recipe is filled ground beef and lots of veggies, plus it can be made ahead of time and frozen for a quick & easy weeknight dinner.

Friends, I’m a spaghetti sauce fiend. I love, LOVE spaghetti pasta with red sauce. Sometimes I’ll mix things up and serve it over spaghetti squash. I’ve even been known to eat the sauce on it’s own just by the spoonful. What I especially love about this spaghetti meat sauce recipe is that it is also filled with lots of healthy vegetables, too!

I’m not kidding when I say I could eat spaghetti and meat sauce every day. Like every day for a month and still not tire of it! For real. My family is not as big fan as I am but they do like it and know of my love for it. Maybe it’s my Italian roots that influence my love—it’s in my blood!

I serve this meat sauce over our favorite shaped pasta then add a garden salad and homemade garlic bread on the side for a delicious dinner. My family loves this sauce as an alternative to the Homemade Crockpot Spaghetti Sauce (that we love too—it’s so versatile!)

Ingredient Tips To Make Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

All of the ingredients for this recipe are easily found at the grocery store. I like to buy store brand when I can to save money. Here are a few extra tips for some of the ingredients:

Carrots, Celery and Onions –  I usually have fresh carrots and onions on hand but not always celery. But frozen vegetables can easily be substituted for fresh in this meat sauce recipe to save you even more time and can also save you money depending on your region.

I have found both frozen carrots and frozen onions at several of my local grocery stores. Frozen celery is sometimes a bit trickier to find. I have seen it in a vegetable blend with onions though so check your store if you’re interested in using frozen vegetables.

Parsley – There are a couple of types of parsley I typically find at my store—curly leaf and Italian or flat leaf parsley. They have a mild flavor and taste a lot alike but have a slightly different flavor. I just use whatever I’m in the mood for that day.

I actually have a container of both types of parsley that I grow so I always have fresh parsley on hand but it is cheap and easy to find at the store, too.

How to Make This Recipe

Start by browning the ground beef in a large saucepan. Drain off the liquid. Sometimes I will brown it in a separate sauté pan instead. That just means I’ll have one extra dish to wash but I find that it’s easier to brown it more quickly in a large flat sauté pan (affiliate link).

Next, chop the carrots, celery and onions (1). I like to use my handheld food chopper (affiliate link) to make the job quicker and easier.

Next, sauté the vegetables and minced garlic with a bit of olive oil in a large saucepan until tender (2).

Then you just add all the remaining prepped ingredients to the saucepan (3), stir and simmer for 30-45 minutes. This is a relatively hands-off recipe to make—the kind I like!

This meat sauce recipe is a bit chunkier than some others. If you prefer a smoother sauce or you’ve got family members that may turn up their noses if they spy the extra veggies, I will sometimes modify it by taking about half of it the cooked sauce, pulsing it a few times in the food processor (affiliate link) or blender (affiliate link) to make it a little “smoother”.

Then I will add that back to the rest of the chunky sauce and it is perfect! I actually like it both ways, but my kids prefer the smoother version.

To serve, cook up your favorite pasta. We like fusilli for this meat sauce but the classic spaghetti shape is good too!

Make Ahead Preparation Tips

Save even more time come dinner time when you prep the ingredients for homemade spaghetti meat sauce ahead of time. You can brown the ground beef and chop the vegetables so that assembly is quick and easy when you’re ready to assemble and cook the sauce.

Is This Sauce Freezer Friendly?

This sauce freezes really well! I also LOVE that I can make a big batch of it to portion out and freeze it so I can thaw it out later for a quick and easy meal that saves my sanity after a busy day. I’m all for make ahead whenever I can! Plus, this sauce tastes even better the second day once the flavors have time to blend.

I like to use my SouperCubes (affiliate link) to freeze it in either individual portions or larger portions so that I can pull out what we want. Don’t forget to date and label (affiliate link) your container otherwise you might think it’s something else (like chili—it’s happened to me!)

Love Pasta? Check Out These Similar Recipes

Slowcooker Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
Delicious Crockpot Lasagna Soup
Super Simple Skillet Lasagna Florentine
Pepperoni Pizza Pasta Salad
One Pot BLT Pasta

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This recipe post was originally shared in 2012 but updated in March 2021 with new photos, content and video.