How should I spice my spaghetti sauce?

So I'm making a basic spaghetti sauce. It's far from authentic italian, I dun care. I browned some ground beef and ground pork, added green peppers, onions, mushrooms, and garlic; and threw in cans of crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, and tomato paste. I also threw in 3 bay leaves. It's simmering as I type.

All it needs now are spices. What should I add and how much? I know nothing about italian spices, I just know I don't want to crack into the jar of Ragu in the cupboard.

Pic unrelated, that's not my sauce.

Oregano is great, even if dried. Salt and Black pepper is a must and consider a bit of honey to bring out the sweetness of the other ingredients.

I put a few drops of an anchovy based sauce, like worchester or nam pla, in mine and red wine is fucking great in any tomato based sauce.

Crushed pepper flakes.

You stupid, boy?

Don’t forget basil. Quality dried or fresh. Go nuts either way. Basil rocks

standard: salt, pepper, oregano, basil, red wine

secred ingredient: whole cloves

This basically
We made our sauce like this at Italian restaurant, but we ordered select tomatoes every year from Italy
Meats, sausage or beef simmered on low heat for hours in the sauce is fucking great

Add a little bit of fish sauce

I made a meaty sauce once. One thing I had to do was add some sugar (not a whole lot) to cut down on this acidic taste.

celery leaf and some finely diced carrot are must haves for a good sauce

I believe the carrot sweetens it up a bit

never considered carrots in a pasta sauce. are we talking so fine that they are disolved/not noticiable in the sauce?

Yeah, I'll usually grate them on a fine grater so they basically disappear into the sauce. It's good to saute them with the onion too, browns the sugars in them a little bit. You can also use balsamic vinegar to add a little sweetness. Adding just sugar is fine if you don't overdo it, but it's better to add an ingredients to sweeten it that also adds some flavor too.

I had to add the sugar since i was far into the simmer process (like 2 hours or so in), so adding anything like that would not have made sense. But i will keep that in mind for next time.

...

anchovies
shallots
sherry vinegar

Equal parts thyme, oregano, basil, ground peppercorn. Dried, not fresh, and added at the beginning of the cook.

Parm rind is nice too. Go easy on it though.

And yes, carrots. I chop fine, don't grate, but do how you like.

green peppers booo

chili flakes or ceyanne pepper

I ended up adding oregano, basil, thyme, pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Basically everything that was recommended in this thread that I had in the kitchen that it wasn't too late to add. It turned out pretty decent, roommates liked it too. Thanks guys.

Finely diced celery, carrots, bay leaves, chicken/beef stock, and a touch of nutmeg.

whack an anchovy or 2 in there.

>American opinions on Italian food

just fucking end it

>tomatoes native to america
>noodles from china
>"italian" food
hmm