For my first "taste" post, I figured I would start with the basics! Homemade tomato sauce, so delish and oh so simple. I started making this sauce 4 years ago and I am happy to say I have not purchased jarred tomato sauce since. It's that good!
I will warn you, I am very much a, looks right, tastes right, kind of cook, which is why I am a terrible baker! But I will try my best to give ingredients and instructions that will produce delicious food.
I make this sauce in large volumes (as you can see) so that I can freeze it and have it available for an easy week night dinner at any time! The best part is that its only 4 main ingredients, lots of onions, garlic, San Marzano Canned Roma Tomatoes, and olive oil, plus a little salt and pepper.
I start by getting a couple large pots and roughly chopping 4-6 onions, depending on the size. You don't need a fancy chop because later you will blend these into the sauce. Add the onions to the pot along with a generous amount of olive oil. Then you let the onions sauté with the olive oil until you just can't stand it anymore. Or at least thats what my husbands Grandmother would have said! But it really is a long time you let them cook in the oil until they are nice and brown and caramelized. Add in some salt and pepper and about 5 garlic cloves as they are cooking so that the flavor starts to develop early.
Once your onions are nice and brown, add in 6 cans of San Marzano Roma Tomatoes. I love the San Marzano brand for tomato sauce, you just can't beat it. I buy it in bulk and always have it at my house so that I can whip up this sauce at any time or use it for a soup or chili when I need it.
Let the sauce cook for about an hour, stirring occasionally, adding salt and pepper as you go.
After the sauce has cooked for a while, use an immersion blender to blend it all together. It will turn almost pink from all the onions. It makes it look creamy, it is so delicious. Then it is ready to be packaged up to freeze.
I like to keep the sauce basic so that when I pull it out of the freezer, I can add things and make all kinds of different pasta sauces by adding, sausage and mushrooms, or bell peppers and goat cheese, I use it to make vodka sauce, bolognese, eggplant parmesan and lasagna. It doesn't take that much time to make a large amount of sauce and I promise you its worth it!
