My Mom’s Unconventional Ground Beef Trick for Making Her Famous Spaghetti Sauce
My mom is an amazing cook. An immigrant from the Philippines, she delivered the goods every night for dinner. Whether she was making her famous chicken adobo or a pot of cozy sinigang, our family of four ate well every single night. As I grew up, she slowly started to incorporate more dishes into her repertoire, like a glazed meatloaf and pot roast, but the one that she truly mastered and made her own was spaghetti sauce. Her version is so good that I don’t even bother to make spaghetti sauce at home anymore; she brings me a container from her freezer every time she comes to visit. And I’m not the only one my mom does this for. She doubles her recipe every time she makes it so there’s more than enough to dole out to my aunts, uncles, and cousins.
My mom’s recipe has all the hallmarks of a classic spaghetti sauce: ground beef, canned tomatoes, garlic, and onion. In typical mom fashion, she tweaked it to make it her own. After a recent lengthy convo to nail down what exactly she adds to her now-legendary sauce, I finally discovered her secret, and she’s letting me share this intel with all of you. The two ingredients she always adds? Soy sauce and fish sauce.
What Makes My Mom’s Spaghetti Sauce Taste So Amazing
Spaghetti sauce at its most classic is already full-on umami in every bite. You truly can’t go wrong when combining seared ground beef, canned tomatoes, onion, and garlic and letting it simmer on the stove. To give it even more flavor, depth, and richness, my mom adds 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of fish sauce to every batch she makes. For many Filipino cooks, it’s common practice to season with fish sauce rather than salt. Even just a splash adds a distinctive flavor as well as salinity. It’s the key to exceptional sauce and is so easy to do.
How to Make My Mom’s Spaghetti Sauce
Sauté garlic and onion until softened.
Add ground beef, soy sauce, and fish sauce, and cook, breaking the meat up with a spoon, until browned. Adding the sauces at this point ensures that the meat is more flavorful.
Add the rest of your ingredients, such as canned tomatoes and seasonings. Simmer until it reaches your desired consistency.
Taste and season with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper as needed.
This article originally published on The Kitchn. See it there: My Mom’s Unconventional Ground Beef Trick for Making Her Famous Spaghetti Sauce
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