Ultimate Tomato Sauce

According to the Italians, making a tomato sauce is a serious task and cannot be taken lightly. Many years back I was travelling in the United States and came across a nice old Italian couple in Texas. It was summertime and they invited me for a cold drink. Walking to their house I noticed a huge boiler can — or a really big pot — in their garage, the door of which was half open. It was half my size, and if I had to guess, it was probably about 30-40 liters (8-10 gallons). This huge pot was sitting on bricks with a sort of improvised gas stove below it. This certainly caught my attention, and when I asked about the contents of the pot, they said they were making tomato sauce for the entire year — it had been sitting on that stove for the last 2 days, and the next day they'd can it and use that tomato sauce for the rest of the year. I was truly fascinated. I'd never seen so much tomato sauce in my life. The old couple explained that the tomatoes were now at the peak of their taste and it was the perfect timing for a sauce. Well, since then I've made plenty of tomato sauce. The variations are huge and can range from adding wine, chicken stock, and even flour.

Cooking time is also an important factor when making a tomato sauce, and it can vary from 1 hour to 3 days. The idea behind the long cooking is that we want all the liquid and the solid parts of the tomato to blend together to achieve a smooth tomato sauce that can be used for various dishes like lasagna, soup, or pasta.

The method of making tomato sauce

First, I'll say this: in wintertime the tomatoes taste a bit watery and only reach the peak of their flavour in summer. Tomatoes need the sun to develop that rich, sweet flavour — which is exactly what we need in our tomato sauce.

So we use a blend of ripe fresh tomatoes and cans of quality crushed tomatoes (go for the quality brands), and mix it all with tomato paste for extra strength and sweetness.

We start the sauce with sautéed onions in some olive oil to get all the sugars out of them, then add the fresh tomatoes, carrots, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, water, and herbs.

In this recipe we don't add any sugar — it's absolutely not necessary. We have so many vegetables that already hold a big amount of sugar in them. I also like to add carrots to the tomato sauce. They add sweetness and also give the sauce a nice, solid body — making it less runny and more stable. It's not necessary to bring the sauce to a boiling point; a gentle simmer is enough. At that point the sauce should cook for at least 4 hours — it's essential if you want to get the best out of it.

Smooth or lumpy tomato sauce?

I like my tomato sauce smooth, with no lumps or pieces of vegetables, so I blend it into a smooth paste and cook it a bit more in that smooth form to evaporate some more liquid and achieve a more concentrated tomato taste. Making a big quantity is the best way to really enjoy all the effort you put into the sauce. Make sure you have plenty of jars or zipper bags — the sauce keeps great in the freezer and can also be stored in a sterilized, sealed vacuum on the shelf.