Italian Gravy is slow cooking wonderfulness. However, you need time to allow the flavors to come together and thankfully, I have that today because I’m enjoying a day off!

My gravy recipe is inspired by my many work visits to New York and lucky for me, my work colleagues shared their secrets to great Italian Gravy. Secrets below 👍

• Time to allow the flavors to develop
• Bones, veal I believe was the original suggestion
• Quality meat
• Wine 🍷 you’d drink, none of the cheap stuff 😉

Here’s my version of Italian Gravy and I apologize if this offense any of my Italian friends. Italian friends, feel free to add you advice to help my recipe👌

I started building the flavors by roasting tomatoes, garlic, onion, carrot and beef neck bones. I tossed those ingredients in olive oil and seasoned with fresh thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper.

After 45mins of roasting at 400, I discarded the springs of thyme and rosemary and added the vegetables to a small-ish sauce pan and set the bones aside.

I then used my immersion blender to create a chunky tomato sauce. You could also use a blender if you wanted a thinner base for your gravy.

While the aromas started filling my kitchen, I started browned ground pork in olive oil. I also added two cloves of garlic, 1 onion, and seasoned with salt and pepper. You ask why add additional garlic and onion, it’s all about building flavors 👍. Once the pork was cooked and the onions were translucent, I added red wine. I used Cabernet Sauvignon because it’s a dry wine with high acidity and goes well with Italian food. Two, like my Italian work colleagues suggested, only add wine you’d drink 😉.

Once the wine reduced a bit, I added the roasted tomato sauce and a large can of crushed tomatoes. I added about 1/4 cup of chopped Italian parsley and couple springs of basil. I added the springs of basil because I’ll remove them before serving and finish my dishes with fresh basil. Finally, I added the roasted beef neck bones, Worcestershire sauce, oyster sauce, tomato paste, salt and pepper and I gave the pot a stir.

Now the waiting and patience. I’ll taste the sauce throughout the afternoon and I’ll add additional oyster sauce or fish sauce to help enhance the flavor. These two sauces help build incredible flavor and umaminess to any dish and I’m a firm believer these sauces can be used outside of Asian food.

For the final plate, combine the gravy with thin spaghetti.

Jackie’s Red Sauce/Italian Gravy

90 minutes to prepare

6-8hr to simmer

This makes quite a lot of sauce and I had enough for spaghetti for 4 (leftovers for lunch) and 2 1 quart freezer containers.

Ingredients for Roasting Pan

• Two beef neck bones
• One head of garlic
• 3 vine tomatoes
• Couple cherry tomatoes
• 2 carrots
• Couple springs of Thyme
• Couple springs of Rosemary
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper

Ingredients for Sauce

• 1.5 pounds of pork
• 1 onion
• 2 clove of garlic
• 1 large can of crushed tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup of Italian parsley
• 2 springs of basil
• 1T of tomato paste
• 1T of Worcestershire sauce
• 1t of oyster sauce
• Salt and pepper
• Couple splashes of fish sauce, as needed

Check out these other Italian dishes…

• Beef Braciole – This herb roulade, aka filled meat roll, is one of my favorite recipes on the site. Check it out if you love Italian classics.
• Beef Spiedini – Melt in your mouth beef roll-up!