I grew up Italian-American, eating some variety of pasta tomato sauce multiple times a week, plus some homemade pizza (with dough purchased from the same place for 25-30 years), but I didn\u2019t grow up with a family tomato sauce recipe, and even into adulthood, when I made it from scratch, I\u2019d almost always use canned tomatoes \u2013 which, out of season, are the better option anyway. (For years, when I would only need a small amount of sauce for pizza, I\u2019d buy a jar of good sauce that had zero added sugar; Trader Joes has one that\u2019s excellent for that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last few years, however, we\u2019ve grown so many tomatoes that we can\u2019t eat them fast enough, and I\u2019ve started getting into making sauce from fresh tomatoes. It\u2019s not difficult, although the two things you need are time and a food mill, and I fully understand that some people have neither. It is amazing how different the finished product can be when you start with fresh tomatoes \u2013 and, contrary to what every cookbook and almost everything on the internet has told me, you can make a good sauce from any tomatoes you grow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So here\u2019s my current iteration of sauce from fresh tomatoes, as simple as I can make it, with six ingredients, one optional. It\u2019ll keep a week-plus in the fridge and freezes for much longer, although I always use it up within a few days. You do need a food mill to get the skins off fresh tomatoes; you can follow the same ratio with canned tomatoes, but can hand-crush them if you\u2019re willing to live with a few extra seeds, and I would probably simmer it for a shorter time because they\u2019ve already been \u2018cooked\u2019 once in the canning process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 2-3 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes (the smaller the tomatoes, the more total weight you want)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 onion, diced<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1-2 Tbsp olive oil<\/p>\n\n\n\n Salt<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00bc cup vodka (optional)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1-3 tsp minced thyme, to taste<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. Put all tomatoes in a saucepan or skillet with a cover over medium heat. Cook about ten minutes, covered, shaking the pan often to prevent sticking or scorching, until the tomatoes have started to burst their skins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Pour everything \u2013 tomatoes, skins, juices, whatever \u2013 into a food mill set over a bowl large enough to hold at least 3 cups of liquid. Mill everything until no more pulp comes through the disc. (I have two discs for my food mill and I use the one with smaller holes for this.) Set the bowl aside and toss or compost the skins and seeds left in the food mill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. In the same pan, add the olive oil and sweat the diced onion with a pinch of salt over low heat until translucent, 7-10 minutes. You don\u2019t want any browning here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. Add the milled tomatoes, the thyme, and the vodka (if using) and simmer 30 minutes to 1 hour over medium-low, stirring often, until the sauce is visibly thickened. The ultimate consistency is up to you, but there’s a lot of water to evaporate here. You can also skip the mincing and throw thyme sprigs in the sauce for the whole simmering stage, then discard them, if you don\u2019t have time or prefer not to have the leaves in the sauce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. Season to taste with more salt, and black pepper if desired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s all I use \u2013 no garlic, no basil (I love it, but it can overpower the tomatoes here), no cheese, and absolutely no sugar. I know sugar is a contentious topic in tomato sauces, and maybe if you\u2019re using out-of-season tomatoes that have less sugar in them, you might want to add it \u2026 but I hate what sucrose does to the flavor and texture of tomato sauce. It\u2019s cloying, and I think that because it\u2019s hygroscopic it tightens up the sauce\u2019s consistency. I want my tomato sauce to taste like tomatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s just my palate, though. This is a template for a tomato sauce. You can add garlic if you want. Or crushed red pepper. (Add enough, or maybe use fresh chilies, and you\u2019ll get an arrabbiata sauce. But you\u2019ll need a tray.) Start with 4 ounces of diced guanciale or pancetta, drain the fat, set the meat aside, then add \u00bc heavy cream at the end before adding back the meat, substituting basil for thyme, and you have pasta alla vodka. Skip the cream and alcohol, use guanciale\/pancetta, add a lot of black pepper to serve, and you have pasta all\u2019amatriciana. You can swap in white wine for the vodka; it\u2019ll be sweeter and a little tangier, but the alcohol will still boost the flavor by liberating some alcohol-soluble compounds in the tomatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also use whatever shows up in the garden, which is always a mixture of red and yellow tomatoes, varying from grape and pear tomatoes up to round ones the size of a racquetball. Yellow tomatoes are less acidic than red, so I wouldn\u2019t go more than half yellow because I\u2019d worry the sauce would be too bland and might spoil faster. Yellows are also sweeter than red tomatoes, which further reduces the need for adding any sugar. You can make a pretty great uncooked sauce from yellow tomatoes, come to think of it, although I haven\u2019t done that in ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, I hope that\u2019s helpful to someone. If you\u2019ve got your own method \u2013 or something passed down from your ancestors \u2013 I\u2019d love to hear it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I grew up Italian-American, eating some variety of pasta tomato sauce multiple times a week, plus some homemade pizza (with dough purchased from the same place for 25-30 years), but I didn\u2019t grow up with a family tomato sauce recipe, and even into adulthood, when I made it from scratch, I\u2019d almost always use canned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[857,846,172,262],"class_list":["post-11426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cooking","tag-food","tag-italian-cuisine","tag-recipes","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11427,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426\/revisions\/11427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}