Heart Healthy Spaghetti Sauce

WHOA! Two posts in one day!

Spaghetti sauce, I LOVE spaghetti sauce! Especially with some form of meat in it! A little salty, a little sweet...and just the right amount of spicy (in my opinion!) Delicious!

For years my taste buds were satisfied with spaghetti sauce from a jar. I didn't buy the cheap stuff, but never splurged either. I figured it was all pretty much the same...and it is, store bought anyways. The more I thought about it, I didn't think it would be that hard to make. (At this point I was even considering starting from whole tomatoes...but that is an adventure for a later date.)

While homemade spaghetti sauce was already on my mind, I read an article about how much salt is in store bought spaghetti sauce. Some have a concentration higher than salt water. Say WHAT? Now I am not going to lie, I love salt ---a little too much sometimes. But in order to indulge in some areas that I like salt, why not cut it out of things that it just doesn't need to be in...or at least cut some of it!

After looking through recipes online, I put a few together to create my own- and it was AWESOME!

It makes a HUGE sauce pan with only a little bit of salt! I achieved the "low sodium" version by buying the ingredients with "no salt added." Unfortunately, Fareway doesn't always carry all of the items with no salt- but I have found that Hy-Vee always has them!

"HEART HEALTHY SPAGHETTI SAUCE"

Cook Time: 45min-1hr

ingredients:

1 ½ pounds Italian Sausage (ground beef substitute for less spicy)
1/2 large Onion, chopped (add up to whole onion, to your liking)
1 Green Bell Pepper, chopped
1-3 Cloves of Garlic, chopped
2 (6-ounce) Cans Tomato Paste (no salt added)
1 (8-ounce) Can Tomato Sauce (no salt added)
1 (14 ½-ounce) Can Stewed Tomatoes (no salt added)
1 Tbsp Italian Seasoning
1 Tbsp Red Pepper Flakes (less if you can't take the heat)
1 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tbsp Sugar
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Water

directions:

Brown the sausage in a large, heavy bottomed sauce pan (or pot) , drain off the fat.
Add onion, green pepper, and garlic. Saute until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes.
Add remaining ingredients.
Simmer for AT LEAST 30 minutes.
Will keep for several days in the refrigerator



Side note: for those who have Macs...download the YummySoup! mac store app....It is a GREAT way to store your recipes and categorize them!



Also- sorry if you find any weird characters in this post, having some formatting issues!