My mom’s spaghetti is a sweet taste of home

Spaghetti with meat sauce reminds me of home. It made frequent appearances during my childhood. Just thinking about it conjures images of my mother at the stove preparing a batch.

Onions are sizzling in a large saute pan. Ground beef is added and cooked until its red color disappears. Tomatoes go in next, simmering away while sprinkles of this and that seasoning lend their flavors until it’s time for the sauce to merge with the cooked pasta, allowing the two to become one. Finally, my mom, dad, brother and I all sit around the small kitchen table to enjoy our bowls of pasta and connect at the end of the day.

Now I yearn for that simpler time, when I wasn’t worried about the stressors of adult life, such as bills, jobs and everything else going on in the world. But for many years and despite the many miles between us, I didn’t yearn for a bowl of my mom’s spaghetti.

Not that it wasn’t delicious, but it seemed to be omnipresent, and I grew tired of it. Spaghetti’s affordability, combined with its relative ease to prepare in large amounts, made it a no-brainer for a family like ours, which needed to clip coupons to satisfy the voracious appetites of two growing boys. We were a true-life example of the “it’s some spaghetti in there” meme, which pokes fun at the dish’s constant presence in many families’ refrigerators. I can still picture the large, plastic white bowl with the blue lid that was somehow always sitting in the fridge, filled with leftover pasta, waiting for us whenever we were hungry and there wasn’t time or energy to prepare a new meal.

No matter how good something is, with enough repetition, you crave something new, something different.

Once I moved out and could make my own decisions about what to cook and eat, I explored as many new cuisines as I could. That curiosity led me to the career I have now. And ironically enough, here I am revisiting my mom’s spaghetti to share with you because it’s all the things those of us with busy lives want and need in our arsenal: efficient, comforting and delicious.

My mother’s spaghetti is in the style of what is sometimes referred to as Black people spaghetti, which food writer Nneka Okona described in The Post a couple of years ago. “This is no vat of unseasoned meat sauce,” she wrote. “No barely covered noodles. Black spaghetti is saucy and flavored boldly.” Each family and cook takes their own liberties with the dish, and it can be enjoyed on its own as a main or as a side for fried chicken or fish.

My mother never followed a recipe, she says, but she always started with a base of onions and ground beef. Then she would add a jar or two of pasta sauce, making sure to swirl them with a bit of water to let no bits of tomato go to waste. (Perhaps unintentionally, this provided the added benefit of letting her simmer the sauce so the flavors could come together without it getting too thick.) Store-bought marinara gave my mother a jump-start, but she would always doctor it up with her own seasonings to get the flavor up to her standards. There were garlic powder and dried herbs, but what stands out most is the touch of sweetness in the spaghetti.

She always added some sort of sweetener to the sauce, which brings a lovely balance to the acidity of the tomatoes. I remember it being a squirt of barbecue sauce going into the mix, which also lent a subtle smokiness to the pot, though I wouldn’t be surprised if ketchup sometimes made an appearance, too. In speaking with my mother about it recently, she mentioned using brown sugar and even a sugar alternative on occasion.

For my version of the meat sauce, I use Italian sausage in addition to ground beef, because I love the fennel, garlic and herb flavor it adds and reinforces. And while there are some jarred marinara sauces that I love, canned tomato paste and crushed tomatoes are more consistent and give more control over the final outcome. As for my choice of sweetener, I opt for brown sugar because I love the extra hint of depth that the molasses in it adds to the sauce.

I can’t remember the last time I’d made spaghetti before developing this riff on my mom’s recipe. My first bite brought a flood of emotions as I thought about how much has changed over the years and how much change is still to come. But it also gave me a warming sense of comfort, just like my mother’s love.

Spaghetti With Meat Sauce

Spaghetti with meat sauce was a staple of staff writer Aaron Hutcherson’s childhood, and this recipe is an homage to his mother’s version. It features a mixture of ground beef and Italian sausage, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and — for a touch of sweetness — brown sugar. It’s designed to make a lot with plenty of leftovers, but you can freeze it — either just the sauce or the finished pasta — for smaller households.

Storage: Refrigerate for up to 4 days. Freeze either just the sauce or the finished pasta with sauce for up to 3 months.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium yellow onion (8 ounces), diced

½ teaspoon fine salt, plus more as needed

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

1 pound ground beef, preferably 90% lean

1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed

1 tablespoon Italian seasoning

2 teaspoons garlic powder

1 (6-ounce) can no-salt-added tomato paste

1 (28-ounce) can no-salt-added crushed tomatoes

1 cup water

2 tablespoons packed light or dark brown sugar

1 pound dried spaghetti

Finely grated Parmesan or pecorino Romano cheese, for serving (optional)

In a large Dutch oven, pot or saute pan over medium-high heat, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the onion, salt and pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion starts to brown around the edges, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add the beef, sausage, Italian seasoning and garlic powder and cook, stirring and breaking the meat into small chunks with a spoon or spatula, until no longer pink, about 5 minutes.

Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring constantly, until evenly combined and the tomato paste slightly darkens, 1 to 2 minutes.

Stir in the crushed tomatoes, water (swirl the water inside the can to get out all of the tomatoes) and brown sugar, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat as needed to maintain a gentle simmer, until the sauce reduces and the flavors come together, 15 to 20 minutes. Taste, and season with more salt or pepper as desired.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until just shy of al dente, 1 to 2 minutes less than the package cooking instructions. Transfer the pasta to the sauce (using tongs or by draining and pouring in) and cook, stirring frequently, until combined and the pasta is al dente, about 2 minutes. Divide among bowls, top with cheese, if using, and serve hot.

Substitutions: For ground beef and Italian sausage use any ground meat or plant-based alternative. Barbecue sauce, granulated sugar, molasses, maple syrup or other sweetener can be used instead of brown sugar. Instead of spaghetti, use your favorite dried pasta shape.

Serves 6 to 8 (makes about 12 cups)

Nutrition per serving (1½ cups), based on 8: 494 calories, 61g carbohydrates, 54mg cholesterol, 15g fat, 6g fiber, 30g protein, 5g saturated fat, 529mg sodium, 13g sugar

— From staff writer Aaron Hutcherson.