The Secret to Homemade Tomato Sauce

It doesn’t matter if your mother is Italian, Southern, Cajun, or Chinese, chances are she has a “secret” homemade tomato sauce. It’s one of the most versatile, delicious foods in the cookbook. Despite the almost infinite number of tomato recipes which claim to be “The Best,” we think you’ll find that ours will knock your socks off.

Very few of us have the time to start our homemade sauces with fresh tomatoes. If you do, you’ll end up with an amazing sauce, but only if the tomatoes are home grown. Store-bought tomatoes do not make good sauce. Use home-grown or canned only.

If you’re starting with fresh tomatoes, boil them for a few seconds and remove the skin. If you’re using canned, choose whole canned tomatoes. Slice them open and remove as many of the tomato seeds as you can. Those little suckers add unnecessary bitterness. Set the tomatoes aside in a non-metallic bowl.

Our recipe then calls for lots of extra virgin olive oil, in which we sautŽ fresh garlic and coarsely chopped onion for several minutes until they just begin to brown on the edges. Toss in a generous amount of oregano and basil, fresh or dried, at least 2 tablespoons of each. Stir for less than a minute to unlock the flavors. Then add the tomatoes to the pan.

The Big Secret

All tomato sauce recipes call for an acid. We use a combination of lemon juice and red wine, at least half a cup total. Some flavor compounds in tomatoes are only alcohol-soluble, and the wine unlocks an extra dimension of flavor as well as adding its own. Any alcohol makes a dynamite tomato sauce, even vodka or tequila! Add it to the sauce, and bring to a boil.

Lower your heat, and add ground black pepper, a few dashes of cayenne or pepper sauce, a tablespoon of sugar to blend the flavors, and then salt to taste. Then let your sauce barely simmer, covered, for at least two hours. Stir every 15 minutes.

When your sauce is served, everyone will be jumping to get your recipe. In under three hours, you have produced the best homemade sauce anyone has ever tasted!

top