ITALIAN QUICK GRAVY for PASTA

Italian Quick Gravy

aka: Italian Spaghetti Sauce

Ricky’s Italian Quick Gravy, is an easy to make Italian tomato sauce with meat. It takes less than 5 minutes to prepare and is an unbelievable second best to an authentic, homemade “gravy” found in many Italian kitchens. It is really that good!

Gravy vs Sauce

The question of why many Italians call this gravy, rather than sauce, is one that has countless answers. Some as simple as the answer that Ricky’s cousin Debbie gave when he asked her why they call it gravy. “Because we are Italian” was her answer. I say it is a gravy, because the fat in the meat (the sausages in this case) flavors and thickens the gravy, just as it does in other meat gravies, like beef or poultry gravy.

Marinara sauce, on the other hand, is a tomato sauce without any meat. In my scenario marinara is a sauce rather than gravy because it is not flavored or thickened by meat fat. At least that is my take on this very pressing issue. 😊 Speaking of Marinara, we have a really delicious, quick and easy marinara recipe. You can find it at MARINARA SAUCE. Give it a try when you want to make a quick meal that doesn’t taste like fast food. You can have a great pasta dinner in less than a half hour. It is great on pasta and it’s perfect for making a “parmesan” dish like eggplant, or chicken parmesan.

Both this quick gravy recipe and our marinara recipe are restaurant worthy and very economical!

You don’t have to be Italian to cook like one

In case you haven’t read our intro page At Ricky’s Recipes, Ricky’s mother was our cooking mentor. Her name is Tess. She taught me how to make a traditional Italian gravy when I was young. I didn’t only learn how to make gravy, watching her cook gave me most of the basic skills I use in cooking to this day. Tess cranked out one good meal after another. She loved cooking for her family and friends and was almost always at the stove.

When I was at Ricky’s house and Tess was cooking, I was standing right there next to her, watching and learning. Her own kids made fund of me! There were times when Ricky and his sister Maureen, (one of my lifelong best friends) went out on a weekend night to do what teenagers do, and I chose to stay and cook with Tess instead. Tess’s own kids didn’t know how good they had it when it came to having a mother who was a great cook.

We also learned things from Tess that have nothing to do with “how to cook” but have made a lasting impression on all our lives. On a daily basis she demonstrated that cooking for your family is a very loving act. Cooking was her way of caring for you, served on a plate. Following in her footsteps has taught each of us what a rewarding experience cooking at home can be.

Why Ricky’s recipes then?

Ricky is the dinner cook in his home but he hasn’t always had all day to cook, like his mother did. So he learned to adapt his mother’s recipes to bring the taste of her dinners to his table, in a limited amount of time. This adaptation of an Italian gravy really works. I was sold on this recipe from my first forkful.

How quick is it?

Well some things can’t be rushed. And the time it takes to slow cook meat in a tomato sauce and make it end up rich, tender and soaked with the flavors of a well seasoned sauce takes time. In this case, it takes 90 minutes. But except for a stir now and again you can walk away knowing you have a great meal simmering on the stove.

So where does the “quick” come in? This recipe is put together and ready to cook, in less than 5 minutes. In fact, it’s more like 2 or 3 minutes. Really! You only need a few everyday ingredients and and except for opening a can and peeling garlic cloves, the only preparation needed is putting the ingredients in a pan.

Quick gravy is not for sausages alone

Feel free to swap the sausages for a pound of another meat that you have on hand. You can use ribs, pork chops, and/or “bone-in skin-on” chicken pieces. Just put them in with the tomato, olive oil, garlic and basil and simmer them in the gravy just as you would if you used sausages. They all work in this sauce and none of them take any additional preparation time. You can’t fully appreciate how good this sauce is until you try it yourself 😋.

It’s not just a spaghetti sauce

This sauce is great with any kind of pasta, but we really like serving it over a cheese filled pasta such as ravioli, tortellini, manicotti or stuffed shells. The cheese adds some protein, introduces another component to the simple sauce, and it makes the meal all the more filling.

You can buy fresh or frozen cheese pastas at most any grocery store, in the fresh refrigerated pasta section or the freezer section. Buying frozen cheese pastas to have on hand is a great idea, particularly if you buy them on sale. If you have never cooked cheese filled pasta, or if you have and had the frustration of losing the cheese filling during cooking, we have a post in our CLAUDIA’S COOKING TIPS GALLERY. Check out Cooking Cheese Filled Pasta.

But, if all you have in your kitchen is boxed pasta, you will not be disappointed. Serve with bread or rolls for sopping up the gravy and some freshly grated Parmesan cheese and no matter what pasta you have used, this is a really fantastic meal.

Here’s what YOU WILL NEED:

Fresh and frozen pastas do not always come in 1 pound packages. Even some dried, boxed pastas are not 1 full pound. One pound is 16 ounces. Judge for yourself how many packages you will need for your family.

About the ingredients

If you are using fresh basil instead of dried, don’t add it until the last 5 minutes or so of cooking time. Dried herbs need time to rehydrate when you are using them in your cooking, but fresh basil will lose it’s flavor if cooked for very long. If you want to read more about the ins and outs of cooking with fresh herbs vs dried herbs, check out our post Cooking with Herb

Is it just me, or do you also see a cockeyed cartoon guy hidden in this ingredients shot?

This is WHAT TO DO:

Quick = add to pan

Add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil to a 10 inch skillet or large saucepan. Pour the whole can of canned plum tomatoes in with the olive oil. Right in the skillet/pan, crush the tomatoes by hand, to squeeze out some of the juice.

Add whole peeled garlic cloves, dried basil, salt, pepper and sausages (or another meat of your choice). Do NOT brown the sausages (or other meat) before adding them. The sausages/meat need to slow cook in the gravy to get the best flavor.

Don’t add fresh basil at this point. If you want to use fresh instead of dried basil, add several fresh leaves torn up into small pieces to the skillet/pan about 5 minutes before the sauce is done. Fresh herbs are much more subtle in flavor than dried, you don’t need to be exact in the number or size of the leaves you use. Fresh herbs lose a lot of their flavor if cooked for long that’s why we are waiting until the end of the cook time to add it. If you are interested in reading more about using fresh vs dried herbs, we have a discussion in CLAUDIA’S COOKING TIPS: Cooking with Herb.

Time to cook

Heat the sauce on medium high heat until boiling, then turn the heat down to simmer. Cover the skillet or saucepan for the first 30 minutes and then simmer uncovered for 60 minutes (1 ½ hours total cooking time). Stir the gravy 3 or 4 times while simmering.

It’s all about timing

Due to evaporation, the consistency of the gravy depends on the cooking vessel you use, and the length of time you keep it covered during cooking or uncovered. The longer it is left to simmer uncovered, the thicker the gravy will be. Adjust those cooking times of covered or uncovered, according to your own idea of just right.

Ricky likes his quick gravy on the thinner side. To get that consistency he cooks his quick gravy in a saucepan, covered during they whole 90 minute cooking time. I like my quick gravy thick, so I let it simmer in a skillet, uncovered. The wider open area of the skillet allows more moisture to evaporate than it would in a saucepan, even if it is uncovered. We have decided to use a middle ground in this recipe.

This sauce/gravy is delicious no matter how long you left the cover on or off as long as you have not shortened the 90 minute ( 1 and 1/2 hour) cooking time. You need the full cook time to get the sausages perfectly cooked.

Do you know the difference between boiling and simmering? Look at our TERMS AND TIPS page to answer some of those questions you may have about terms commonly used in our recipes.

When to cook the pasta

During the last 15 minutes of cooking time, in a separate large saucepan, boil your choice of pasta according to package directions and drain. Cheese filled pastas are somewhat fragile when cooking or draining them. It is easy to break them open and have the cheese leak out into the pasta water, so use a blunt implement to stir during cooking, such as a wooden spoon. Also I find that using a large slotted spoon to transfer the cooked pasta from the pan of water into a bowl, rather than pour the water and pasta into a colander to drain, reduces the chance of them breaking open. All this is covered including pictures, in our post Cooking Cheese Filled Pasta.

Mix a good amount of gravy into the drained pasta to prevent it from sticking together. Spoon the remaining gravy over the pasta when served, along with the sausages.