Tomato Sauce
This is a staple in our home. We sometimes vary the fresh herbs, but this is the way we make a tomato sauce using whole canned tomatoes. Originally served as part of Lasagne Rolls.
- Farfalle with Spicy Sausage Sauce (2003-01-17)
- Penne with Vodka Sauce (2003-02-13)
- Sausage Cream Sauce (2003-02-16)
- Cavatelli with Mushroom Tomato Sauce (2003-04-07)
- Squid Sauce (2004-02-04)
- Quick Tomato Sauce (2004-04-26)
- Thick Tomato Sauce (2006-02-14)
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 28 ounce cans whole peeled, organic tomatoes
- 1 1/2 cups onion (chopped)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons garlic (minced)
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 3 3-inch stems leaves removed parsley
- to taste salt & pepper
- to taste hot pepper flakes
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley and basil herbs (chopped)
Instructions
We start by heating the olive oil in our dutch oven (a large heavy bottomed pot with a lid). We add the onions and saute on medium-low heat until translucent. This takes 5-10 minutes. The minced garlic cloves are then added and cooked for 30 seconds.
We remove the dutch oven from the heat, and spoon the onions and garlic into the blender (we have used a food processor for this but the blender gets the sauce the most pureed). We pour the tomato liquid from one can into the dutch oven, and put the whole tomatoes from the one can into the blender. We puree the tomatoes with the onions and garlic until smooth. We are very careful not to add the 2 cans of tomatoes to the blender. We have learned, from rather messy experience, that adding too much of anything to a blender can cause rather violent overflows (not quite an explosion, but it sure seems so at the time!).
When 1 can of tomatoes is completed, we pour it into our dutch oven. We then pour the tomato liquid from the second can into the dutch oven and puree these tomatoes. Once these have been pureed and added to the stove, we add the dried basil, fresh parsley stems, salt & pepper, hot pepper flakes, and bay leaves. We then simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes, partially covered, over medium low heat.
When the sauce is almost ready to be served, we add the chopped basil and parsley to the sauce, taste for salt and pepper, and turn off the heat.