Homemade Tomato Sauce

Ever since Trader Joe's stopped carrying my beloved "Starter Sauce" in a box, I decided I'd try making my own sauce. Finally I did it! So I went to Whole Foods and took three kinds of Italian tomatoes - I mean real imported Italian tomatoes with nothing added except a little salt in one case. A box of Pomi chopped tomatoes (that I had already pureed), a 28oz can of whole peeled San Marzano plum tomatoes and a smaller can of San Marzano cherry tomatoes (by the way, I found out a little too late that these still had the skins on. whoops. If you use them - I got them at Whole Foods with a yellow label - check first LOL).

As to why real imported tomatoes, they have this intrinsic sweetness that allows the sauce to be made with no added sugar. It works especially well for salsas too but for pizza as well, because when the sauce is combined with the crust and cheese and toppings, the sauce's flavor still gets through. :D Considering how much sauce I got for about $5 worth of tomatoes, I'd say it's worth the extra money to get a really top-quality end product that can be used for a long time.

But first, I heated up some extra virgin olive oil in my biggest pot and lightly sauteed about a half an onion (I don't really like onion so I go small on them) and many cloves of garlic, on pretty low heat for a few minutes. BTW, using a very large pot is crucial, even if you aren't making that much sauce - when the sauce cooks down, it kind of bubbles and blubbers and well, spits. If the pot's full, it will bubble and blubber all over your stove (yes even on low heat) ;)



Then I added about half a can of tomato paste (get one that has ONLY tomatoes as an ingredient please) to thicken it all up and let that go for about a minute, then I dumped in all the various tomatoes. I decided to put all the seeds and juice in, I figured it'd just cook down and I was going to puree it anyway. Maybe that's wrong. HAHA. Also, with the can of San Marzano tomatoes (which I put in after the cherry tomatoes, aka after I realized they had their skins on and I had to turn off the heat and go through and try to get all the peel out LOL), I was more careful and looked at those one by one and what I did was take off that hard part where the stem was attached that you get in tomatoes - I figured it'd be hard to puree later so I might as well do it. As I put each one in I squeezed it to break it up a bit.


I didn't really pay attention to how long I cooked it for, although I guess it was only about an hour... but it seemed quite thick already and it had reduced a fair amount so I killed the heat and let it cool for another hour or so to make it easier to handle and to make sure it thickened well. You can see in this picture as compared to the one above that it is a good amount lower in the pot and it just looks a little darker and thicker even in a picture:


After it cooled for a while (to basically room temperature) I mixed in some fresh parsley (Italian flat-leaf, of course) and a good pinch of kosher salt and pureed it in the blender (b/c I like pureed sauces). And there you have it! You can see the flecks of parsley in the final product; I hope that adds a fresh-tasting touch. I'll probably use it a couple times before breaking it down into smaller containers and freezing. If there's any excess water it should float to the top and I can get rid of that so it won't really get grossly watery after freezing.