This is the best healthy meat sauce recipe! It's easy to make in one pot with lean ground beef, jarred tomato sauce, vegetables, and olives. This meat sauce has the most incredible Italian flavour, is great for meal prep, freezes well, and is kid approved!
I am so excited to share this recipe with you! This is the meat sauce I grew up with. It's my idea of comfort food and is seriously the best meat sauce ever. I really can't take credit for the recipe as it was my Dad who came up with it (just like my popular gluten free burgers), but I figured it was just too good to keep to ourselves any longer. I can't wait for you to try it!
Table of Contents
Why I love this meat sauce:
- The taste! This healthy spaghetti sauce has the most incredible flavour! The addition of olives takes it over the top and makes it taste so much better.
- It's easy to make and it's made in one pot so the clean up is so quick and easy - just like ground pork chili!
- It's a healthy complete meal. It's also sugar free, gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo, Whole30 compliant and packed with vegetables.
If you love healthy ground beef recipes you will also love my sugar free sloppy joes, and meatloaf without breadcrumbs or cheese.
Recipe
Healthy Meat Sauce
Equipment
- large pot
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoon coconut oil (or other cooking oil of choice)
- 2 lbs lean ground beef
- 3 jars tomato sauce (total of ~2100 mL)
- 1 can tomato paste (156 mL)
- 1 can black olives (juice included)
- 1 can green olives (juice included)
- 2 tablespoon Italian seasoning (more or less to taste)
- 2 tablespoon dried basil (more or less to taste)
- 2 teaspoon sea salt (more or less to taste)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (more or less to taste)
- 4 sweet bell peppers, chopped
Instructions
- Place a large pot on the stove on medium heat. Add the coconut oil and allow it to melt. Then add the ground beef and cook it for 5-10 minutes until browned, stirring frequently to break it apart.
- Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, olives, spices and chopped bell peppers to the meat. Stir well until everything is combined.
- Turn down the heat to low, cover the pot with the lid, and allow it to simmer for 45-60 minutes, until the vegetables are the consistency you prefer. Stir the sauce infrequently while simmering. Then serve and enjoy!
Notes
- Store this sauce in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
- Instead of ground beef feel free to use another ground meat such as ground turkey or ground pork.
- You can add other vegetables to this recipe such as carrots, peas or zucchini.
Nutrition
Recipe variations and add ins:
- You can add other seasonings such as onion powder or garlic powder to this healthy meat sauce for even more flavour.
- Instead of lean ground beef you can use another ground meat such as ground turkey, ground pork or ground chicken.
- Feel free to add other vegetables - I will often add chopped onion, carrots, zucchini or green peas. This sauce is a great way to use up any vegetables that you have in the fridge.
- Feel free to add cooked, chopped sausages, such as air fried Italian sausage to give it even more flavour and make it higher in protein.
- I love a chunky meat sauce but if you prefer a smoother texture, finely chop the vegetables and olives or puree them in your food processor before adding them to the sauce.
- For an extra kick of flavour add a bit of dry red wine to the sauce.
How to make healthy meat sauce step-by-step:
- Step 1: Place a large pot on the stove on medium heat. Add the coconut oil and allow it to melt. Then add the ground beef.
- Step 2: Cook the ground beef for 5-10 minutes until browned, stirring frequently to break it apart.
- Step 3: Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, olives, spices, and chopped bell peppers to the pot. Stir everything well until it's combined.
- Step 4: Turn down the heat to low, cover the pot with the lid, and allow it to simmer for 45-60 minutes, until the vegetables are the consistency you prefer. Stir the sauce infrequently while simmering. Then serve and enjoy!
Top tips:
- Be sure the tomato sauce you use doesn't have any sugar added.
- The cooking time for this healthy meat sauce will vary depending on how thick you want your sauce to be - the longer you let it simmer the thicker the sauce will get.
- Serving ideas: this sauce is delicious served as is but you can also serve it over cooked pasta or spaghetti noodles, cooked spaghetti squash, or zucchini noodles. You can also pair it with garlic bread, gluten free almond flour biscuits, or other side dishes such as a kale apple salad.
Healthy meat sauce FAQs:
Bolognese is known in Italy as ragù alla bolognese. It is a meat-based sauce and is classically used to dress tagliatelle al ragù and to prepare lasagne alla bolognese. It is usually made with onion, celery, carrot, beef and pork, white wine, milk, and a small amount of tomato paste or tomatoes. The dish is gently simmered to produce a thick sauce. Meat sauce on the other hand is typically a tomato-based sauce and is more common outside of Italy. Ground beef or other ground meats such as ground turkey are often added.
It is usually healthier to make your own pasta sauce compared to buying pre-made pasta sauce. Many store bought pasta sauces will contain added sugars, whereas when you make your own pasta sauce you can keep it sugar fee and add other healthy ingredients like fresh vegetables.
This healthy spaghetti sauce recipe is great for diabetics because it is sugar free and has no added sugar.
Store any leftover sauce in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 5 days. I recommend storing it in a glass container so that the red sauce does not stain your plastic containers.
This sauce freezes well in an airtight container for up to 3 months.
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