Meat Sauce (Italian-American Sunday Sauce)

The Ultimate Sunday Sauce. This sauce cooks all day long creating a savoury, meaty tasting sauce that is perfect for all your favourite pastas. You cook the meatballs in the simmer sauce so that they are tender and add great flavour to the final product.

2 (28 oz) cans crushed tomatoes
2 (28 oz) cans tomato sauce
2 (6 oz) cans tomato paste with garlic and herbs
2-2½ lbs beef neckbones
1 small yellow onion, minced
6 cloves garlic, crushed
12-15 fresh basil leaves
3 Tbsp. white sugar
2-3 Tbsp. dried oregano
2 Tbsp. dried parsley
sea salt
black pepper, freshly ground
water
extra-virgin olive oil or butter
1 recipe Italian Meatballs

The water in this recipe is a ballpark figure of how much water you will need to use. There have been times I have made this sauce and needed to add a little more water to keep the sauce simmering for the amount of time it needs to cook. Use your best judgement.

Use a large stockpot, the bigger the better, add a splash of olive oil or a few Tbsp. of butter to the pot. Add your onions and garlic cloves, and sauté on low, slowly letting them get golden brown.

Dry off your beef neck bones, rub a little olive oil into them and season them well with salt and pepper on all sides.

When your onions and garlic are golden brown, move them over to the sides of the pot and add your neck bones. Let the neck bones get browned on both sides. Flipping them once.

When your neck bones are browned. combine the onions and garlic and neck bones and then add 4 cans of the crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce to the pot.

I add water to each of the cans, to get the excess tomato off the bottom and sides and add that to the pot as well. Plus one extra can of water. This is why you will need an extra big pot.

Stir well, making sure none of the tomatoes or neck bones settle to the bottom of the pot, bring to a low boil, stirring occasionally.

Add your sugar, oregano, salt and pepper, parsley and fresh basil. Stir well to combine.

Reduce the heat to very low and prepare to be stirring this off and on for at least 6 hours and up to 8 hours.

Stir throughout the day, making sure none of the bones settle to the bottom and burn, and also being careful as the bones soften as the cook, that you aren't breaking off small fragments of bone into the sauce.

Make the Meatballs:
You will add them to the sauce around the 4 hour cooking point. You can make the meatballs a day in advance, just be sure to let them sit out for at least 30 minutes to get warmer before adding to the sauce. Carefully remove the beef neck bones from the sauce. Be sure to be aware that some of the bones will break off into the sauce. Remove all the bones. You can either throw away these meaty bones, or serve them as a side. They are delicious. Some also remove the meat from the bones and add them to the sauce.

Slowly add the meatballs to the sauce, this will make your sauce rise up in the pot, so be sure you have a large pot. You may need to add 2-3 more cups of water so that the meatballs can simmer.

Simmer the meatballs in the sauce for at least 2 hours, longer is better. But they will be fully cooked after two hours.

At the end of cooking, mix the two cans of tomato paste with 2 cans of water (the same cans you got the paste out of) whisk until smooth, slowly add to the sauce, cook for at least 45 more minutes. Make sure you are stirring and being careful that the paste doesn't settle to the bottom of the pot and burn.

Taste your sauce and adjust the salt and seasonings if needed.

Serve with your favourite pasta and be sure to have bread on hand to keep dunking into the sauce to taste as it cooks.