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All-Purpose Marinara Sauce

"I use this recipe for marinara sauce as a base for all my pasta dishes. You can use the sauce 'as is' for a meatless spaghetti sauce. Or you can add just about any meat or seafood to add variety to your meals. In addition, you can add kidney beans and your favorite ingredients to make a super chili. My kids eat this pasta sauce like no other. They are happy campers when the house is filled with the aroma as this sauce is cooking."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 16 ingredients
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All-Purpose Marinara Sauce

Why it works: Capers and horseradish share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 82 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

All-Purpose Marinara Sauce

6 quarts
Prep15 min
Cook40 min

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

237Calories
5 gProtein
15 gFat
25 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 12 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Tomato1 medium (123g)22
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Chili1 tsp (2.7g)8
Cumin1 tsp ground (2.1g)8
Oregano1 tsp dried (1.8g)5
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Olive1 large (4g)4
Capers1 tbsp (9g) drained2
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Horseradishnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Capers + horseradishtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Olive + caperstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,688 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, garlic, tomato, capers, parsley, mushroom, horseradish):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Oreganofits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, garlic, tomato, capers, parsley, mushroom, horseradish. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.