These days, it’s hard to find a good jarred tomato sauce in stores with a balance of real ingredients, decent flavor, and affordable price. For those reasons, I usually make my own. With a few adjustments, this recipe can be adapted for different uses, including dipping bread, in lasagna, on pizza, and more!
Ingredients:
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 onion, diced
Salt
2 cloves of garlic, minced, or 1 tsp. minced garlic from a jar
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. red chili flakes
Pepper
5-8 fresh tomatoes, chopped (depending on variety and size) (peeling optional)
1 15-oz. can crushed or diced tomatoes, undrained
OR
1 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes, drained
4-6 leaves fresh basil, chopped (optional)
Directions:
1. Add olive oil and onion to large saucepan on low heat. Toss with salt to coat. Cover and allow onion to sweat about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. When onion is translucent, add garlic, sugar, Italian seasoning, oregano, and chili flakes. Recover, and sweat another 2-3 minutes or until garlic is just starting to deepen in color and dried spices begin rehydrating.
3. Add pepper to taste and fresh tomatoes. Cook uncovered until tomatoes warm through and begin to soften, stirring occasionally.
4. If using a regular blender, dump sauce into blender, then add canned tomato product. Blend until smooth. If using an immersion blender, add canned tomato product to sauce, then blend to desired smoothness. Be careful of jamming the blender and splattering hot sauce everywhere.
5. Simmer another half hour or so to cook out the canned flavor. Taste occasionally to test progress of sauce. Add additional spices if necessary.
6. At the last minute, stir in basil.
7. Use sauce immediately, store in the refrigerator for up to a week, or freeze if keeping on hand for later. Be sure to bring temperature of sauce down quickly with ice baths so sauce doesn’t sit in the “danger zone” too long.
So that’s it. A little labor intensive, but you know exactly what’s going into your sauce, and can use it for a number of different dishes, or as a base for a new sauce. So why all this extra work? Well classic sauces made entirely of fresh tomatoes have to be stewed for so long that all their vitamins are destroyed. Factory-made jarred sauces compensate for this by adding citric acid.
But why use both fresh and canned tomatoes? Canned tomato products are already red, so using canned products can take your orangey-pink sauce to red without having to cook it down for hours. Canned tomatoes are also cheaper than fresh, so using a combination of fresh and canned is a good way to get good flavors while still making your dollar stretch. And although you have to cook the canned flavor out, it’s still a much shorter cooking period than trying to cook all fresh tomatoes down to make a red sauce that’s actually red.
I recommend this sauce on pizza, with cream and vodka added to make a delicious vodka sauce, baked into ziti, combined with Italian sausage and peppers over penne, or any other way you typically enjoy tomato sauce. Leave your thoughts in a comment below, or get in touch with me directly by filling out the form on the contact page.
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