Homemade Tomato Sauce
Saturday, August 22nd, 2009We are getting LOTS of tomatoes from share each week, plus our garden plants are starting to produce. We’ve harvested a few ripe tomatoes in the last week, and there are lots and lots of green tomatoes, just waiting to all turn red at the same time! Here is a great basic recipe for fresh tomato sauce. It is easily adaptable to the ingredients you have on hand, and – VERY IMPORTANT – it freezes well!
Here is the recipe:
- 10 ripe tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped (I used a yellow pepper because I didn’t have green)
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
- 1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning (I didn’t use this, but I did add parsley, onion powder and Old Bay – my secret ingredient to everything!)
- 1/4 cup Burgundy wine (I didn’t add this, either!)
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 stalks celery
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste (I did not add this as I wanted to use all fresh vegetables)
I tripled the recipe to use all of my tomatoes and I also added 1 zucchini (shredded), and 1 yellow squash (shredded). I like that this recipe does not call for 40 lbs. of tomatoes like some canning recipes I have seen!
- Bring a pot of water to a boil. Have ready a large bowl of iced water. Plunge whole tomatoes in boiling water until skin starts to peel, 1 minute. Remove with slotted spoon and place in ice bath. Let rest until cool enough to handle, then remove peel and squeeze out seeds. Chop 8 tomatoes and puree in blender or food processor. Chop remaining two tomatoes and set aside.
- In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, cook onion, bell pepper, carrot and garlic in oil and butter until onion starts to soften, 5 minutes. Pour in pureed tomatoes. Stir in chopped tomato, basil, Italian seasoning and wine. Place bay leaf and whole celery stalks in pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 2 hours. Stir in tomato paste and simmer an additional 2 hours. Discard bay leaf and celery and serve.
I blanched the tomatoes and pureed them last week, then froze them until I was ready to make the sauce. After 2 hours of simmering it, I did NOT add the paste, but instead just took the cover off and simmered it for 3 more hours to reduce it. It is still a little thinner than I like it, but I think I can thicken it up as I use it. I used it for a baked rotini recipe last night and it was delicious and just the right consistency.
homemade tomato sauce
Mine sauce looks more orange than red because I used a yellow pepper instead of green and some of the tomatoes I used were yellow. I think the zucchini and yellow squash washed out the color, too. BUT the important thing is that I used what I had and it tasted good! Which is good because I have SOOOOO much of it! 
