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Lost in the Sauce!

 

 

I LOVE tomato sauce. On pizza, on pasta, in a bread bowl: I could go on and on. I always thought that people who made their own tomato sauce must be super fancy chefs, but when we got a pallet of over-ripe tomatoes at the pantry this week, I decided to try and learn how to make tomato sauce myself. Making tomato sauce is SO easy, as it turns out! You only need a handful of ingredients, and you don’t have to pay super close attention to the pot as the sauce cooks! I made several jars of sauce and froze what I didn’t want to use immediately, but you could also preserve homemade sauce by canning it. Stay tuned to the blog to learn more about canning and food preservation in later posts!

You will need:

– 4 cups fresh tomatoes, chopped into pieces half the size of your thumb

– salt and pepper to taste

– 2 tbs of lemon juice

– 4 tbs oil

– fresh garlic or garlic powder, optional

– fresh diced onions or dried onions or onion powder, optional

– basil, dried or fresh, optional

– oregano, dried or fresh, optional

-thyme, dried or fresh, optional

(Using 4 small tomatoes made about 1 cup of sauce. This recipe makes almost 4x as much sauce.)

  1. Chop the tomatoes into pieces half the size of your thumb.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the oil over low-medium heat with the salt, pepper, spices, garlic, and onions for 2 minutes.

  3. Add the tomatoes and lemon juice to the saucepan and stir to combine.

  4. Turn the heat to low, and cook the tomatoes for 20-30 minutes or until soft, stirring gently every 6 minutes. As the tomatoes cook, their skins will fall off. You can use a masher or spoon to mash the softened tomatoes into a smoother sauce, or you can let the sauce develop naturally as the tomatoes fall apart while they cook.

  5. The longer you cook the sauce, the smaller the pieces of tomatoes will become, and the smoother the sauce will be. When you reach your desired level of chunkiness, simply turn off the stove, and pour the sauce into jars. The fresh sauce will keep for a week in the fridge, or up to 3 months in the freezer.