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This homemade easy marinara sauce is full of tangy tomato flavor and takes just over 15 minutes to make: no chopping required!

The other day, my best friend told me: “I want to learn how to make marinara sauce. Like a really, really good marinara sauce.” Because a really good red sauce is hard to come by, right? Alex and I have tried a lot of recipes over the years: many of them take hours to simmer on the stove, and they don’t turn out that great. We wanted to make one that was tangy, super flavorful, and also takes about minutes to make. Meet our new best ever easy marinara sauce! It’s heavy on the tangy sweet tomato flavor, a little garlicky, and perfect for a simple pasta or dipping grilled cheese or calzones.
Also try: Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

The secrets to this truly easy marinara sauce
There are lots of people who claim they have the best marinara sauce recipe. Or even the most traditional marinara sauce. Here, we’ve used some time-tested techniques and some “shortcuts” to make this easy marinara sauce that is both delicious and doesn’t take an hour to simmer. (Speaking of, if you’d like a long-simmered sauce, try our Best Vodka Sauce.)
Here are some of our secrets to an easy marinara sauce that doesn’t even require chopping:
- Use fire roasted tomatoes. First rule of a good marinara sauce: if the tomatoes don’t taste good, the sauce won’t taste good! To make our marinara sauce taste amazing in a very short time frame, use fire-roasted tomatoes: their flavor is sweet and mild. These tomatoes are becoming common in US grocery stores. If you can’t find them, see below.
- Fresh basil. Of course, fresh basil makes everything taste incredible! Basil is the key to this marinara sauce flavoring. If it’s not summer, it’s worth seeking out the fresh herbs in the grocery (you’ll thank us later).
- Fresh garlic. Fresh garlic adds a punch to this aromatic sauce. It makes a subtle yet important difference!

What if I can’t find fire roasted tomatoes?
Fire roasted tomatoes are key in this recipe, because of their sweet flavor right out of the can. These tomatoes have been charred over an open fire, then canned. Other tomato varieties can taste bitter out of the can, and need to be cooked for longer.
Want to order them online? If you love online shopping like we do, here’s a link to buy Fire Roasted Tomatoes on Amazon.
If you can’t find fire roasted tomatoes for this recipe, you can substitute any high quality variety of canned tomatoes. You may find you have to cook the sauce a little longer to remove the bitterness. Take a taste at the end, and see if it needs a little extra love.
Best ways to serve marinara sauce
Of course you know how to serve marinara sauce, but here are some suggestions:
- Pasta: Over spaghetti, penne, rigatoni, or gemelli
- Dipping sauce: As a dipping sauce for calzones or grilled cheese dippers
- Pizza: As a homemade pizza sauce
- Meatballs: With our best vegan meatballs.
- Eggplant Marinara: In eggplant marinara or grilled Eggplant Parmesan
- Spaghetti Squash: Topping our Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti
- Mussels: This recipe features in our easy Mussels Marinara

Want more easy Italian recipes?
Here at A Couple Cooks, we love Italian recipes. We’ve mastered the art of artisan pizza with our Pizza Margherita and fluffy Pizza Dough Master Recipe. We’ve got a totally authentic Cacio e Pepe and an Italian-grandmother style Vodka Sauce.
Here are a few more easy Italian recipes that we love:
- Easy Creamy Gnocchi: It takes just 20 minutes to put together this gourmet Italian mac and cheese.
- Pasta Puttanesca: This classic pasta gets big flavor from tomatoes and Kalamata olives.
- Tuscan Soup with White Beans: This Tuscan soup tastes like pizza, in liquid form.

This easy marinara sauce recipe is…
Vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, plant-based, and dairy-free.
Easy Marinara Sauce
This homemade easy marinara sauce is full of tangy tomato flavor and takes just over 15 minutes to make: no chopping required!
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: About 4 cups 1x
- Category: Sauce
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 28 ounce can crushed fire roasted tomatoes (or best quality crushed tomatoes)*
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 8 fresh basil leaves (if using)
Instructions
- In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil. Add the minced garlic and cook for 1 minute, until fragrant. Turn down the heat. Carefully add the crushed tomatoes, olive oil, oregano, kosher salt, sugar, and whole basil leaves.
- Bring to a simmer, then cover and simmer 10 minutes. Taste and add a pinch more sugar to round out the flavors if desired, or simmer up to 30 minutes to mellow the flavors (depending on the brand of canned tomatoes).
- If desired, pulse with a blender: All crushed tomato brands are different, and some may be chunkier than other. If you’d like, pulse the sauce a bit in a blender or immersion blend to get to the desired texture (we like ours a little chunky, but you could make it fully smooth too).
Notes
*If you can’t find fire roasted tomatoes, use the best quality tomatoes you can find. Taste the tomatoes before you start. If they taste bitter, you may need to simmer the sauce a little longer than the stated timing. Fire roasted tomatoes taste sweet right out of the can so they can simmer less time, whereas other brands taste bitter and need longer to simmer.
Please, please, please post the original recipe! The one with the balsamic vinegar! The changes here may be great, but the original recipe was a family favorite.
We just made a few tweaks to this recipe, thanks for noticing! We’ve had some feedback that we were trying to address by updating the recipe. However, knowing that you love the recipe with balsamic is super helpful! Thank you for saying so. I’ll provide the original recipe here, and then we will continue to test and hone to possibly bring back to the previous version. The issue is with varying brands of tomatoes, it’s hard to have consistency in flavor (what brand do you use, as a side note?):
28 ounce can crushed fire roasted tomatoes (or best quality crushed tomatoes)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
8 fresh basil leaves
In a large saucepan, place the crushed tomatoes, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic powder, oregano, kosher salt, and whole basil leaves. Bring to a simmer, then cover and simmer 15 minutes.
Thank you for posting the original! I usually use either Cento San Marzano tomatoes or Muir Glen fire roasted petite diced tomatoes. The Cento tomatoes are whole, so I pierce/cut them when I put them in the pot, then use an immersion blender once they’ve cooked. The sauce is wonderful on homemade pizza!
Can you freeze this sauce ? I’ve made it a number of times and would like to make a bigger batch and freeze it, if I can.
Yes, it should freeze fine!