Mama J’s spicy sausage meat sauce

Many thanks to Ragu for sponsoring today’s story about my family traditions.

Easy recipes like this spicy sausage meat sauce always make me think of my mom, a.k.a. Mama J to the grandkids. She has a knack for putting easy and affordable meals on the table that everyone likes, especially picky kids. Just like Assunta Cantisano, the mom behind Ragu’s sauce, my mom has been passing down traditions to me that I now enjoy with my own kids. This easy spicy sausage meat sauce is one of those traditions.

Mama J has always dreamed of being Italian. She doesn’t know much about her heritage other than the fact that she has some Native American and some Dutch in her. She loves to tell strangers that she was Italian.  She’s so good at this story that several of my boyfriends believed her. I once asked her why she wanted to be Italian so much. Her response? “I love Italian food.”

Mama J has never been much of a cook, but that doesn’t keep her from putting dinner on the table every night. She doesn’t think she taught me a thing in the kitchen. She’s the one who calls me for recipes. Little does she know that a lot of my recipe hacks come from her. While she’ll never be found developing new recipes from scratch, she is the queen of putting together cheap and easy meals that are sure to please a family.

So when life got a little hectic over here this past week, I knew I had to pull a page from Mama J’s book. I needed a family friendly recipe that could be on the table in 30 minutes or less. I used two of my mom’s favorite standbys: jarred Ragu pasta sauce and spicy ground sausage. Together they make up Mama J’s spicy sausage meat sauce. It’s perfect over any types of pasta, but I’m partial to penne.

[bctt tweet=”Slow down, and make an easy 3 ingredient meal: Mama J’s Spicy Sausage Meat Sauce. “]

My mom is great about reminding me to slow down and not take life too seriously. With the holidays in full swing, I needed to give myself a break from difficult dinner prep, and make something easy. It actually gave me time to enjoy the people I ate with, instead of spending a ridiculous amount of time on food prep.

My favorite part of this easy meal is that my kids get to watch me put together a meal stress free. As a blogger, I’m sometimes a little stressed in the kitchen. I try to do my difficult recipes when the kids aren’t around, so I love the opportunity to cook with them.

Another reason I love this meal is because my 7 month old gets a serving of veggies from the sauce! We do baby led weaning with him and he’s all about pasta and sauce these days.

I must admit that red sauce is not my favorite. It’s the reason why I’ll never make it from scratch. I don’t want to spend a ton of time putting together something that everyone else likes, but I don’t. I’ll always buy jarred red sauce. Ragu is great because it has no artificial flavors, no artificial colors, and no high fructose corn syrup. I feel good serving it to my kids. I’m a little in love with all the Ragu pasta sauce recipes found here.

It really is amazing to think that they whole Ragu company started from one woman, Assunta, selling her sauce from her front porch in 1937. Make sure to learn more about her story here.