What's your best methods for thickening spaghetti sauce?

Tomato paste.

Are you using store bought spaghetti sauce? If you let it simmer long enough most of the liquid will dissolve. This will help thicken the sauce. You can also saute some vegetables, Italian sausage or ground beef and add it to the sauce for a thicker sauce.

And some tomato paste like @wundayatta suggested. =)

Tomato paste if I’m in a hurry, or I let it cook down if there is time. Pretty standard, I don’t get much more creative than that.

A little grated cheese melted into it will thicken it. Or you can use cornstarch if you want a low-fat thickener. (Mix the cornstarch with a little cold water first, then stir it into the sauce, don’t stop stirring until it’s thickened, otherwise it will go lumpy).

I like to throw in some Parmesan cheese, and remember to leave the lid off the pot for a good while so some moisture can escape.

I like using stewed tomatoes, and load mine up with double everything, meats, red & yellow bell peppers, boatloads of mushrooms, chopped onions, etc. If the sauce is still too runny after everything has cooked down I’ll simply drain off the excess and leave the base of meats and veggies. A slotted spoon works well too if you don’t want to skim off the thinner sauce.

Minced TVP, textured vegetable protein. It’s cheaper than dirt, you can buy it in bulk, and added to spaghetti sauce, has a texture identical to hamburger. I add some liquid smoke, and meat-eating friends of mine can’t tell the difference between TVP and lean ground beef. And since TVP absorbs twice its weight in water, it will thicken up any sauce.

Boil that kangaroo down, boys, boil that kangaroo down. The long simmer intensifies and marries the flavors. Put in some more raw garlic close to the end.

I agree a little tomato paste, or let it boil down.

Always make tomato sauce uncovered. Covering the tomatoes while cooking causes the sauce to be acidic.

If you are making a dish that you mix in the pasta, if the pasta cooks in the sauce, the starch from the pasta will thicken the sauce a little. Or you can add a little constarch as mentioned above, remember to mix the starch with cold liquid before adding it to the sauce and bring to a boil. I actually don’t recommend adding cornstart to thicken sauces though. It gets icky when reheating in my opinion.

There’s never enough left to reheat when I’m eating it…

You can also chop up some mushrooms, any kind you like from button, to shiitake to portobello, chop them up pretty fine and then sautee them until they just start to brown, in a little bit of olive oil and some chopped onion. Then stir them into your sauce. Super yummy.

Or if you like a more of a creamy style sauce, simply add some real cream to your marinara sauce. Or if you like a cheesier flavor, you can also add cream cheese. Yum! If you’re worried about the fat content, you can get low fat versions of the cream and the cheese and it won’t even make a difference in the taste, just don’t use the fat free stuff, which does change the flavor considerably.

a sprinkling of “Filé powder“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fil%C3%A9_powder

Tomatoe paste and finely graded cheese will combine to make your sauce thicker.

I add a bunch of finely chopped vegetables, especially carrots, broccoli, peas. If that doesn’t do it. I add a thin flour and water paste (I think it’s called a slurry).

1st choice- some ground beef.

2nd choice – cooked/pureed carrot if the sauce is also on the bitter side from too much tomato paste.

3rd choice – pureed cooked/canned beets to cut salty sauce, too thick sauce.