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This Greek-style meat sauce recipe is more traditionally known as Makaronia Me Kima. This is a comforting sauce that I grew up with. It smells so good when it’s cooking, and it tastes even better over a bowl of spaghetti noodles. This meal is nostalgic, delicious, and hearty. It’s the perfect meal for any season, but especially when the weather starts to get cooler.
Why You’ll Love This Meat Sauce Recipe
- Quick: A good pasta sauce recipe doesn’t need to take forever, you can literally whip this one up in only 50 minutes
- Delicious: This flavorful meat sauce is so delicious. It is made with a ton of spices that pack a punch of flavor in every bite
- Comforting: Whether you grew up with a traditional Italian meat sauce, or a Greek sauce like this one, there’s nothing more nostalgic and comforting than a big bowl of spaghetti
Ingredients
Ground Beef – I used ground beef in this meat sauce, and it’s often the meat you’ll find in most meat sauces. Use lean or extra lean beef, so it’s less fatty. If you don’t eat red meat, you can swap the ground beef for something leaner like ground turkey or chicken, swap for lamb, or alternatively, you can swap it for Beyond Meat veggie ground if you want a vegetarian variation of this recipe
Maria Koutsogiannia
Maria is the creator of FoodByMaria and your go-to Greek food expert for cozy, flavor-packed recipes. Inspired by her Mediterranean roots, she brings traditional Greek flavors, feel-good ingredients, and a whole lot of joy to everyday cooking.
Kefalograviera Cheese – A Greek hard yellow cheese that’s a cross between Kefalotyri and Graviera. It has an intense flavor, is salty, and is made of sheep’s milk
How to Make Greek Meat Sauce
- Add olive oil to a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot, and celery and cook until softened about 4-5 minutes. If you don’t have the veggies for mirepoix, you can swap them for other veggies like sweet peppers
- Stir in the ground beef, stirring occasionally to break up the meat, and cook for about 10-12 minutes until cooked through
- Pour in the red wine to deglaze the pan. Cook it for a few minutes until most of the wine has evaporated. Deglazing is a cooking technique that involves adding a liquid (like wine) to the pan to loosen the food particles at the bottom of the pan
- Stir in the garlic, spices (salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, dried basil, allspice) and bay leaves until incorporated. Next stir in the diced or whole tomatoes (if using whole tomatoes crush them up a bit when added to the pot), sugar, tomato paste, and water and bring to a boil. Once simmering, turn the heat to medium-low and let simmer with the lid on until the sauce has cooked down and most of the liquid has evaporated
- Near the end of the cooking time, cook the spaghetti noodles in salted water until al dente. Drain the noodles. Cooking in salt water flavors the noodles and also limits starch gelation
- Serve the spaghetti noodles in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and spoon the sauce overtop. Add grated parmesan or kefalograviera cheese and enjoy
Tips and Tricks
- Spices: The spices in this meat sauce are non-negotiables for an authentic Greek meat sauce, so don’t skip out on these
- Tomatoes: You can use fresh tomatoes or canned tomatoes in this recipe
- Cooking Time: Follow the recipe below, but there is no harm in cooking this meat sauce for longer. The longer usually the better. Feel free to cook longer on low to get this sauce even more flavorful
Substitutions
- Mirepoix: This is the mix of chopped onions, carrots, and celery that make a base for a lot of recipes. If you don’t have these three ingredients you can substitute (or add in) other veggies like sweet peppers
- Red Wine: If you don’t want to open a bottle of red wine, or don’t want to use alcohol (even though the alcohol contents burn off) you can use another liquid like beef broth instead
- Ground Beef: Swap for a leaner protein like ground chicken or turkey, or alternatively, use a plant-based ground meat substitute like Beyond Meat
- Pasta: Swap out the regular pasta noodles for gluten-free noodles to make this recipe gluten-free
Best served with
How to Store Leftovers
Fridge: Store the leftover sauce and spaghetti noodles in an air-tight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Freeze: You can freeze leftover sauce (without noodles) in air-tight containers for up to 3 months.
Common Questions
Yes! You can totally freeze meat sauce safely. When you’re ready to eat it, take it out of the freezer into the fridge to thaw. Heat up on the stove over medium-low heat.
Italian guidelines recommend 60-100g of dried pasta per person. It’s easy to overcook pasta so even if it seems like too little, it probably isn’t.
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Ingredients
- 1 ½ tbsp olive oil
- 2 white onions, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 2 celery stalks, diced
- 800-900 g ground beef
- ¾ cup red wine
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- 1 tbsp dried basil
- ¾ tsp all spice
- 3 bay leaves
- 28 oz canned tomatoes, diced or whole
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 cup water
- 1 package spaghetti noodles (454g package)
- olive oil
- grated parmesan or kefalograviera cheese
Instructions
Start Cooking- Add olive oil to a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot and celery and cook until softened, about 4-5 minutes.
- Stir in the ground beef, stirring occasionally to break up the meat and cook for about 10-12 minutes until cooked through.
- Pour in the red wine to deglaze the pan. Cook it for a few minutes until most of the wine has evaporated.
- Stir in the garlic, spices (salt, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, dried basil, all spice) and bay leaves until incorporated. Next stir in the diced or whole tomatoes (if using whole tomatoes crush them up a bit when added to the pot), sugar, tomato paste and water and bring to a boil. Once simmering, turn the heat to medium-low and let simmer with the lid on until the sauce has cooked down and most of the liquid has evaporated.
- Near the end of the cooking time, cook the spaghetti noodles in salted water until al dente. Drain the noodles.
- Serve the spaghetti noodles in bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and spoon the sauce overtop. Add grated parmesan or kefalograviera cheese and enjoy!
Notes
- Serve with Maroulosalata aka my Mama’s Salad for a delicious meal!
- If you don’t want to use red wine, you can try substituting with alcohol-free red wine or beef broth.
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Who doesn’t like Greek food???And anyway who cares!That׳s all what we eat!Maria keep on making and sharing your beautiful recipes!Yasou!💕🥰
thank you so much, Barbara!!
What!!Who doesn’t love Greek food.And anyway who cares We 💕love and eat everyday!Love your recipes .Keep on cooking and sharing your beautiful recipes😍Yasou !
Thank you for sharing. It may have different spices known in the US. If I close my eyes, I think I can smell it cooking. Nice job. I’m open to experiences. Sorry they were unkind !!!
It’s ok!!! I ended up winnig so that’s all that matters lol
I made this last night. It was delicious! I will be making this again since the fam loved it. Side note, I added a bit more wine, just had to let it reduce a bit more but the flavor was exceptional.
I love to hear this! This sauce is truly one of my favourites!!!!!
Man oh man this is exactly what I’ve been looking for since 2014! I had just recovered from a stomach bug and wanted something familiar in Greece, cue spaghetti and meat sauce. THIS. WAS. IT. Thank you so much! The only thing I’ve found close to it was pastitsio, and that’s significantly more labor intensive. I followed the recipe exactly, and low and slow. I can’t thank you enough, delicious!
Thank you so much, Gracie! This makes me so FRICKING happy!!!
I’ve been looking for a recipe that comes close to my mother in law’s sauce. She lives in Kalamata. This recipe is it. Thank you!
oh wow!! this is so flaterring. Thank you so much, Lisa!
Every bite was bursting with flavor, and it felt like a warm hug on my plate. The instructions were so easy to follow, making this recipe brought back memories of cooking with my YAYA, which made it even more special. Both of my kiddos cleaned their plates – saving this one to my favorites and coming back for more recipes MARIAAA!
thank you so much for the love, victoria! You are so sweet!
Hi ! This recipe was so comforting ! The meat sauce was lovely.
Even though there are quite a bit of spices, the flavours were very balanced and the meat sauce tasted even better the next day.
I did not have grated kefalotiri on hand. I used myzithra instead and it added a nice cheesy and savory kick to the recipe.
Thanks for your hard work and promoting our culture ❤️ !
I love sharing recipes I was raised on!!!! Thanks for trying it!!
I was at a popular Greek restaurant and tried this Greek style meat spaghetti for the first time. I couldn’t believe how amazing it tasted. Since then, I’ve been trying different recipes that were similar to that dish. It really hasn’t been successful. I tried Maria’s recipe this week and I couldn’t believe it. It’s even better than the one from the restaurant!!! I also appreciated how easy it was to make. My husband, 3.5 year old and even my 9 month old loved this dish!! This will definitely be added as one of our go tos. Thanks Maria!
This makes me so happy, Jenny! Thank you so much!!!
I love pasta, will definetely try to whip this up!
Isn’t it the best!!!