7-veg tomato sauce | Vegetable recipe | Jamie Oliver recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you make Jamie Oliver fresh tomato sauce? ›

Peel and finely slice the garlic, then place in a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Stir regularly until lightly golden. Pour in the tomatoes, either scrunching them through your hands, or breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Let it simmer on a low heat until your pasta is cooked.

Add Some Umami

Some tomato sauces need a hit of the savory flavor we call umami, which you can get from a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, fish sauce, or liquid aminos. You could also use soy sauce, so long as you're sure it won't make your sauce too salty.

Browning and adding some sausage, turkey, chicken or ground beef will increase your sauce's flavor, incorporate extra texture, infuse a heartier taste and up the protein content. Italian sausage is one of the best meats to add to your canned pasta sauce to achieve that classic Italian taste.

Fresh tomatoes: Try to stick with plum tomatoes, like Roma, San Marzano, and cherry tomatoes. Be sure to peel the tomatoes (and remove the seeds, if you like, but it's not necessary). White sugar: The sugar will balance out the acidity and give the sauce a hint of sweetness.

Add butter

Yes, that's right. Toss in a few tablespoons of butter, and let it melt into the sauce. If you've never tried it before, it might seem strange, but a little butter makes tomato sauce rich and smooth, and also balances out too much acidity, which is common in jarred sauces.

The reason for sprinkling a pinch of sugar into a simmering saucepan of tomatoes is simple: sugar cuts the acidity of the tomatoes and creates an overall more balanced sauce. The exact acid levels in tomatoes can vary quite a bit depending on whether they're fresh or canned, the tomato variety, and the time of year.

Southern-cuisine expert and cookbook author Diana Rattray has created more than 5,000 recipes and articles in her 20 years as a food writer. In a salad or sandwich, you don't need peeled tomatoes. But, if you're making a fresh tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes, the tomatoes should be peeled, cored, and seeded.

Cheese and dairy give sauces creaminess while butter and oil give them richness. You also don't need to use a lot — these are just for finishing and rounding out the flavors in a sauce. Whole Milk or Heavy Cream: Add a splash and let the sauce simmer for a few minutes to thicken.

Why is my homemade tomato sauce watery? ›

Tomatoes naturally contain lots of water, so cooking any tomato sauce for a long period of time will help eliminate some of the water content. The water will slowly but surely evaporate, leaving behind a thickened, full-bodied sauce with lots of flavor.

Add fresh herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary, bay leaf), and let them simmer to give a punch of fresh flavor.

If the sauce has been opened for less than five days, give it a small taste; if it tastes off or sour in any way, it's time to throw it out. Always look out for mold as well; it can happen in an instant with jarred pasta sauce, sometimes even before the five-day mark.

Texture-wise, fat adds a rich, mouth-coating feel to a sauce, both when it's broken out of the sauce on its own, and when it is emulsified with the sauce's liquid phase, making the whole thing creamier. Add a bit of butter in there as well.

In a salad or sandwich, you don't need peeled tomatoes. But, if you're making a fresh tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes, the tomatoes should be peeled, cored, and seeded. The result will be a smoother sauce without any seeds, core, or peel in it. Don't worry, it's an easy and quick process.

You can also chop the tomatoes by hand, run them through a food mill, or purée them with a stick blender after they've been cooking. How long to cook the sauce? I give a cooking range of 30 minutes to 90 minutes (1 1/2 hours).

Most tomato sauce recipes are based on canned tomatoes, and canning companies carefully regulate the pH level of their products. So, the need to add sugar to tomato sauce is declining, but there may still be exceptions. It's best to make your sauce without sugar at first, then taste it and add a pinch if necessary.

You CAN make tomato sauce without removing the peels first, but if you want a smooth sauce that doesn't contain any bitterness from the peel then I would take the 20 minutes or so to blanch and peel the tomatoes first.