Cheater's Spaghetti Sauce

Yes, I do buy already made spaghetti sauce in a jar. I’m not Italian, so it’s okay. Actually we treat spaghetti as a quick dinner around here and I know a lot of other families do too. In that spirit here’s a quick way to make the spaghetti sauce from a jar taste a little fancier:

The Cheater’s Spaghetti Sauce

1 large jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce (26 oz. or so)
1/2 lb. sweet Italian sausage
1/8 c. water
1/4 c. sherry
1/4 tsp. sugar (only if needed)

If your sausage came in casings, remove the casings. Crumble the sausage into a skillet, add the water and brown over medium-high heat until the sausage is done and browned. The water will have cooked away by this point so don’t add any more.

Add the sherry and deglaze the pan scraping up all of the brown bits. After the pan is deglazed and the sherry is reduced by at least half add the sauce and then stir to combine. Lower the heat to low and allow the sauce to simmer for 15 minutes, then taste it. Some sauces have more ‘tomato bite’ than others and the sugar helps to tone that down, so add the sugar at this point only if it’s needed. Allow the sauce to simmer on low while you prepare your pasta. If your sausage was particularly greasy you may need to skim a little off the top of the sauce.

Easy-peasy. I’ve tried a million different ways to jazz up jarred sauce but this one works every time and I don’t even have to add other seasonings. The sausage and sherry bring out the flavors better, I guess. Just make sure you start with a decent sauce because you’re not going to make a bad sauce much better with this method.

If you want to make it even better, make the sauce the day before and then reheat it the next day.
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