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There are many kinds of Vegan Marinara Sauce Recipes out there. There are slow-cooked pasta sauces that you use a food mill to grind, creamy vegan alfredo sauces, and meaty vegan bolognese. But what if you just want a classic red sauce that can be made at any time of the year, and can anoint your spaghetti with its perfect texture, with just 10 basic ingredients in just under 30 minutes? This simple sauce is gonna make you so darned happy.
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Crafting the perfect marinara sauce is an art form, passed down through generations, each adding their own twist. My mom, for instance, has always made her sauce very oniony, to add to the natural sweetness of the tomatoes. But you don't need a century-old recipe to make a sauce that is perfect for vegan baked ziti or to go with gluten-free vegan meatballs. With a tiny number of ingredients and just one pot, we’re keeping this gravy (it’s what my wife’s family from Jersey calls it) simple and utterly delicious.
Grab a non-reactive pot (this is one of the recipes I will tell you NOT to make in cast iron), and let’s bang out some "can't-stop-eating-this" great tomato sauce!
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🥰 Why you'll adore this vegan tomato sauce recipe
✊ Vegan AF and GF: Just like all of the vegan Italian recipes I whip up, this one's made completely without harming a single critter. It’s also one of my gluten-free vegan recipes that “regular” eaters love too, so don’t be scared to share this with your grumpy old carnivore dad or whatever.
🍅 Richness Redefined: For purists who think great marinara can’t be made with canned tomatoes, well, it CAN! See what I did there? No, for realsies, the simple cooking process and finely tuned recipe rocks, and rivals great fresh tomato sauces while being cheaper to make and wayyyyy more consistent all year round.
✅ Tested and Approved Worldwide: Like all my vegan recipes, this tomato sauce has undergone rigorous testing and approval by a massive group of cooks and recipe testers worldwide.
🥫Ingredients for vegan marinara sauce
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Opt for a first cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, and always store it at moderate temperatures, out of direct sunlight, where it might oxidize and go rancid. It’s essential for great marinara as it is for making dishes where it’s sorta the main attraction, like olive oil braised celery root, and Turkish Soslu Patlician Yemegi.
Onions and Garlic
Onions and minced cloves of garlic, AKA cipolla and aglio in Italian, provide a sweet pungent foundation, essential to building the layers of flavor in our sauce. If you're out of onions, shallots (which I always keep on hand for making Indonesian recipes like sambal dabu dabu and tahu goreng) make a perfect substitution. If you are a real garlic freak, don’t be bashful about adding a couple more cloves to this recipe, or even adding a tiny bit of raw minced garlic to the final sauce.
Whole Peeled Tomatoes
Canned whole peeled tomatoes break down into a velvety sauce, rich in vitamin C and lycopene, an antioxidant linked to heart health. Not all canned tomatoes are alike, and there are several reasons for that. But what makes the biggest difference in tomato sauce is what the peeled tomatoes are canned with: a nice thick puree, or thin tomato juice. My personal go-to whole tomatoes for sauces is from a company called Bianco Di Napoli, which are some of the downright most flavorful canned tomatoes I have ever found.
Tomato Paste (Concentrato di Pomodoro)
Tomato paste, or "concentrato di pomodoro," intensifies the tomato flavor, adding depth and richness to the sauce. For a more nuanced flavor, you can swap it out with sweet Turkish pepper paste (don’t worry, the flavor works amazingly well in this recipe). Tatli biber salcasi (or the spicy version, aci biber salcasi) is normally used in Turkish recipes like Kisir, Lahana Sarma, and Mercimek Kofte. Just don’t tell your picky Italian granny you used the stuff, and she’ll love your sauce and pat you on the head.
Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
Crushed red pepper flakes, or "peperoncino," are key for that gentle heat that sneaks up on you. They're not just about spice; they also add a layer of complexity to the sauce. If you prefer a milder sauce, you can skip em’ completely or use a milder pepper flake such as Gochugaru (what you would use to make vegan kimchi or Korean BBQ sauce) or Aleppo chili flakes (which are the spice of choice for Turkish ezme).
Sugar
Depending on your tomatoes, which can even vary in sweetness batch-by-batch from the same brand, they may need a little sweetness boost. The first restaurant I ever worked in, Tom Valentine’s Quest in Manhattan, had a tiny bowl of sugar and a squeeze bottle of white vinegar on every station in the kitchen to balance the sweetness and acidity of ingredients as needed. You can use regular cane sugar, maple syrup, coconut sugar, or palm sugar, which is the sweetener I mess with for southeast Asian desserts like Indonesian bubur sumsum, and Filipino Tupig.
Another way of adjusting the sauce's sweetness that my mom always relies on is to increase the number of onions and let them cook long enough to become sweet. This makes the sauce take longer to make, and you can’t go back and adjust the amount of onions once the sauce is finished! That’s why a tiny sprinkle of sugar to taste, at the very end, is an easy way to nail the perfect flavor.
*See the recipe card at the bottom of the page for exact quantities, nutritional info, and detailed cooking directions.
📖 How to make vegan spaghetti sauce
Nail this classic Italian sauce on your first shot by following these step-by-step photos with helpful tips. Or scroll down to the bottom of this page for the easy-to-print recipe card.
Step One
The OG, O and G:
Warm olive oil in a pot over a medium-high setting. After 90 seconds, when the oil is hot, toss in the diced yellow onion and garlic. Sauté for about four to five minutes or until the onion becomes somewhat translucent.
Step Two
Tomato time:
Next, add the can of tomatoes (including all juices), tomato paste, oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, and sea salt into the pot.
Step Three
Simmer Down
Set your burner to medium heat and let the sauce gently bubble away for around 18 minutes, infusing all those flavors together.
Set your burner to medium heat and let the sauce gently bubble away for around 18 minutes, infusing all those flavors together.
Step Four
Go on a blender:
Add the fresh basil and give the sauce a good whirl with an immersion blender in the pot until it's smooth. Alternatively, transfer it to a blender and pulse for thirty seconds to achieve your desired consistency.
✅ You can puree the sauce until it’s smooth, or if you want it a little chunky pulse it a few times with the blender.
Step Five
Final Touch:
Swirl in a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil to round off the sauce with a hint of richness.
Step Six
Ok, FINAL Final Touch:
If the tomatoes you used turned out to be a bit flat tasting, a spoonful of sugar will smooth things over, to balance the acidity.
Step Seven
Serve Over Fresh Pasta!
I mean, you don't have to. You could just stare at it if you are on a diet, or use it as a dipping sauce for vegan drumsticks, or on top of vegan fried chicken to make an unforgettable vegan chicken parm.
💡Serving Ideas
Of course, this classic marinara sauce is best suited to your favorite pasta, or zucchini noodles, garnished with a little freshly grated vegan parmesan or a sprinkle of nutritional yeast. But you know you are allowed to get a lil' bit wilder than that, right?
Slather this bangin’ homemade sauce on Vegan Italian Sausage with fried peppers and onions, which is one of my wife’s fave things ever, either on a soft Italian bread or vegan garlic bread.
Want a thicker-bodied escarole and bean soup? Add a cup of this marinara and prepare for a vegan soup you will love so friggin’ much!
Finish your din-din with a classic Italian dessert like vegan panna cotta or vegan tiramisu made with espresso-soaked vegan ladyfingers and dairy-free mascarpone. Or one of my classic Italian donut recipes such as vanilla bean pastry cream-stuffed bomboloni or zeppoli.
👉Top tips
- Quality Tomatoes Make the Dish: The foundation of a stellar marinara sauce lies in the quality of the tomatoes. Opt for ACTUAL San Marzano tomatoes if you can find them; their balance of sweetness and acidity is only surpassed by Bianco Di Napoli.
- Slow and Low is Sorta the Way to Go: My wife’s Sicilian ancestors shed a tear from beyond the grave every time I rush a sauce. But sometimes you just gotta get dinner on the table, which is where this recipe shines. If you have time, though, the sauce will develop a deeper, sweeter flavor if you let it simmer for a full hour over low heat.
- Fresh Finish: Notice that the fresh basil and a little EXTRA extra virgin olive oil go in at the very end of this recipe? That’s no mistake, my dear goose. Those help balance the deep, robust cooked flavors of the sauce and should not be skipped!
- Blending to Your Liking: The texture of your marinara sauce is personal. Some prefer it chunky, capturing the rustic essence of the dish, while others enjoy a smooth, velvety consistency. Use an immersion blender or a quality high-speed blender to make it easy to pulse for a more diverse texture (my preference), or let it rip for a smoother sauce.
- PLEASE Use Fresh Basil: Dried basil is bullshit. It has about as much flavor as adding confetti to your sauce! Please use fresh basil.
🤷♀️ Recipe FAQs
Keep it in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. You can also portion the sauce into smaller containers and freeze it for up to three months.
Yes, FOR SURE, you can use fresh tomatoes! You can either blanch and peel them (you can follow my method for doing that in this Moroccan Harira recipe), or you can use this time-saving hack I sorta love if you are lazy like me. Just dice fresh tomatoes and cook them in the sauce.
Then, instead of using an immersion blender, put the whole sauce through a food mill. This will simultaneously remove the tomato skins and give the sauce a fantastic texture. You can see that method demonstrated in my gluten-free vegan cooking class.
If your sauce is too thin, let it simmer uncovered for a few extra minutes to reduce and thicken. Alternatively, a small amount of additional tomato paste can help achieve the desired consistency.
This marinara recipe already has a little bite, because, in my opinion, a just-slightly spicy sauce is a delicious sauce! But feel free to adjust the heat to your preference by adding more crushed red pepper flakes to taste. Start with a little and increase gradually until you reach your preferred spice level.
Yes, you wacky ol’ muscle man, yes! Add crumbled vegan Italian sausage, ground vegan chicken, or thin slices of vegan pepperoni to boost the protein. If you are gluten-free though, those will not be your best options though. If you follow a gluten-free diet, some vegan chorizo crumbles or mashed chickpeas could be just the ticket.
Some folks (not me, to be completely transparent) like a sauce with a creamier texture. If that’s you, add a spoonful of vegan cream cheese or vegan ricotta before serving. Make this your own marinara sauce by going rogue, your wacky cream fiend...
✌️My faves to serve this all over:
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Learn to make plant-based red sauce masterpieces in a super-fun recorded cooking class with Chef Adam Sobel!
Vegan Marinara Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 teaspoons
olive oil
- 1 cup onion diced
- 4 teaspoons garlic minced (2-3 cloves)
- 28 oz whole peeled tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or to taste
- ¾ teaspoons salt or to taste
- ⅓ cup fresh basil leaves
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1 ½ teaspoons sugar if needed depending on the flavor of the tomatoes
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. After 90 seconds, when the oil is hot, add the diced onion and minced garlic, cooking for 4-5 minutes until the onion becomes soft and translucent.
- Add the whole peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, crushed red pepper flakes, and salt.
- Bring the sauce to a simmer, lowering the flame to medium, and let it cook for about 18 minutes.
- Add the basil and use an immersion blender to puree the sauce, or pour it into a high-speed blender and blend for 30 seconds, breaking up the tomatoes and onions into tiny bits.
- Finish the sauce by stirring in a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.
- If the tomatoes you used were a bit tart, you can add sugar to balance the acidity.
- If you intend to freeze the sauce, multiply this recipe and make a large pot of it. Then, once cooled to room temperature, portion it and label each sealed container with the date, and you can have spaghetti for breakfast, lunch, and dinner forever!
Notes
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Dosa Princess says
Easy to follow recipe, make a batch and freeze in small portions for easy pasta dinner- Thank you Adam
Adam Sobel says
Really glad you loved it
Marna says
Marinara just as it should be... simple, umami sweet... showcasing whole tomatoes and fresh, lots of fresh basil....melding them together into a sauce to adorn, to embellish, any pasta...any! It, on its own, seriously... needs nothing else.