A ragú sauce is just a tomato and meat sauce to be used with pasta and calzone. However, if you use it with a meat dish, like chicken parmiggiana, you can leave the meat out of the sauce.

I made my own out of onions sautéed in olive oil, some salt, pepper and other spices plus canned tomato sauce and diced tomatoes.

I’ve never been a fan of tomato-based sauces and I serve them rarely. When I eat my chicken parmesan in this sauce, I eat the sauce too because it’s tasty.

Yield

Enough sauce to serve 6 individual servings of chicken parmesan.

Ingredients

	2 tbsp	olive oil
	1 small	onion, fine-chopped
	1 cups	sliced mushrooms (optional)
	½ head	fresh garlic, minced (toss the tiny cloves)
	1 large can	diced tomatoes
	2 cans	tomato sauce
	1 can	tomato paste
	—	salt and pepper
	1 tbsp	basil (dried)
	½ tbsp	oregano (dried)

Preparation

1. Heat the oil to medium hot, sweat the chopped onion in the oil until clarified, but not caramelized. Sweat the mushrooms. Reduce the heat and add in the garlic to continue to sweat for about 1 minute longer.

2. Add the crushed or diced tomatoes and the tomato sauce. Season with salt, pepper, basil, oregano, etc. Simmer for 15 minutes if using in another dish, 20 if using as sauce. If it dries out and becomes too thick, add more tomato sauce and/or chicken stock to thin and cook some more.