How to make homemade tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes

Making homemade tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes

How to Make Tomato Sauce at home from scratch using fresh tomatoes

During the summer months there is an abundance of tomatoes on the northeast coast line. If you grow them yourself or if you get them from your local green market you can often find them for less than fifty cents a pound. We were given two boxes of tomatoes and we decided we were going to can them for the fall and winter months. Tomato sauce can be very expensive and you really don’t know what’s in that jar besides tomatoes. Homemade sauce is easy to make and with a little preparation can be done in a few hours.

After making your sauce read my hub on How to can or jar your homemade tomato sauce so you can store your own sauce. Then you can make extra sauce and put some away for the upcoming months. We make chili and spaghetti or pasta every week so we enjoy having extra sauce on hand. You can make a variety of sauces for different uses. We like a thicker and chunky style sauce. If you prefer a plain marinara for seafood you can cook the vegetables separately and add them in later after you have removed your plain sauce. If you don't like thick and chunky sauce you need to use a blender and a strainer.

Pick tomatoes that are firm and not bruised or spoiled. Remove any damaged spots before you start. If you like chunky sauce you also need to prepare the vegetables to be added to the sauce. We added baby porto bello mushrooms to the first batch of sauce that we made. Remove the stems and then take a damp cloth and wipe each of them off gently. You do not soak mushrooms in water to remove the dirt. Then just slice them and place them in a bowl you can set to the side until you need them to go into the sauce.

Ingredients for chunky sauce:

Large firm tomatoes (20)

1 large green bell pepper 1 large red bell pepper

2 medium onions 6 cloves garlic

1 tbs dried oregano 2 tbs Italian seasoning

1 tbs black pepper ½ cup olive oil

2 tbs sugar

Optional: hot peppers ½ pound mushrooms

** If you do not want chunky sauce you can omit the bell peppers and mushrooms. Or you can mince the bell peppers and add them for flavor. For a chunkier texture we chopped them.

Preparation:

In one large Dutch pot boil water to blanch the tomatoes in for 5-6 minutes. Let the tomatoes cool and remove the skins, core and chop up. Clean bell peppers by removing the core, seed then chop into chunky size pieces. Clean and chop onion into small pieces. Smash the garlic cloves remove the skins and cut and chop into very small minced pieces.

In a Dutch pot heat the oil over a medium flame and add the peppers and onions, stir until the peppers get soft then add the garlic. Garlic will burn so once it’s been warmed up and you can smell it add the tomatoes and let them come to a boil. Then lower to a medium to low flame and let simmer for 2-3 hours. After 20-30 minutes add your seasonings and the sugar. We add sugar to our sauce to reduce the acidity levels which can cause heartburn in some people. You can add up to ½ cup of sugar. We have also been told that fennel will reduce the levels as well. If you like the flavor of fennel you can try adding a tablespoon of crushed fennel seeds. You can also add 3-4 bay leaves for added flavor but remove them before using the sauce or canning it.

Check the sauce every 10 minutes and smash the tomatoes. You do not want to let the sauce burn at the bottom. Some recipes call for blending it or putting it through a food processor. You can do that if you want a thinner sauce. We prefer the chunkier sauce so we just mash it until it’s cooked with a potato masher. If you make too much sauce you can store it in canning jars in the refrigerator for a few weeks. If you are going to keep the sauce longer than that I would can them. Read my hub on How to can your homemade tomato sauce. Enjoy!