Oh boy, what a can of worms this is. Everybody's got their own way of making red sauce and I'm down with that. My version in a nutshell?
Sauce for pasta- crushed tomatoes, good olive oil, a bit of garlic, torn basil leaves.
Sauce for pizza- crushed tomatoes, good olive oil, a bit of garlic, fresh oregano, crushed red pepper.
That's it. Really. You can embellish it to a particular recipe but if you're just making sauce to can or keep in the fridge for a few weeks, keep it simple and customize it to your particular dish. And don't cook your basic sauce for hours and hours, if you later want to simmer braciola or an al sugo meat sauce until it falls apart, that's a different story entirely...
Great Italian food, and I was lucky to learn Italian cooking from old country Italians in a great restaurant kitchen, is about simple flavors.
