Weekend Cooking: Homemade Tomato Sauce

Recently Zeronic and I made tomato sauce for the first time and since it went so well, I wanted to share the recipe! You do need to make some time for it, that can be a con. But there are a lot of reasons to consider making this yourself. It is cheaper, healthier and tastier. And since the recipe yields about 8 portions, you won't have to make sauce for a while. Especially if you are just a family of two, like us. The jars are also a nice gift :) If you are planning to make this recipe, it is wise to save up some jars beforehand. I used this recipe from Vegatopia as base, so Dutchies can just click the link. As usual I will translate the recipe to English for the non Dutchies :)

Homemade Tomato Sauce (8 portions - about 2 large jars)
- 1.5 KG pomodori tomatoes
- 4 shallots, chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, pressed
- some chilli powder to taste
- 150 gr canned mashed tomatoes
- 4 bay leaves
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp dried provencal herbs
- 3 tsp dried oregano
- 2 handful fresh parsley, chopped
- bit of oil

Boil some water. Cut a little X on the back of every tomato. Blanch the tomatoes for 30 seconds each and cool them immediately in ice cold water. If the tomatoes are cooled somewhat you can remove the skins. Chop the tomatoes into quarters, remove the seeds and chop the rest of the tomato in little pieces. Throw away the seeds.

Bake the shallots in some oil and add the garlic and chilli powder. Then add the mashed tomatoes and two mugs of water. Stir and then add the tomatoes and bay leaves. Stir again till everything is mixed well. Add sugar, salt and dried herbs and taste. Season some more if needed. Place a lid on the pan and let it simmer for a good while until the tomato becomes soft and it is more of a sauce.

Add the fresh parsley and let it simmer some more. You can add more water if the sauce is too thick or let it cook a bit if the sauce is too thin. Remove the bay leaves. I actually used a mixer at this point because we both like a really smooth sauce. This does speed up the process too ;) It isn't in the original recipe, but I liked the way my sauce turned out because of it.

Now carefully transfer the sauce into the jars. I actually used a funnel for this part. Screw the lid on immediately, it will create a vacuum when the sauce is cooling down. This way you can store your sauce for quite some time.

Please check out the other weekend cooking posts! I always find them very inspirational :) 

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