You Can Easily Make A Flavorful And Healthy Pasta Sauce
- By Neil Druker
- Published 12/17/2011
- Recipes
- Unrated
Not all of us have the privilege of being Italian. It seems every Italian has the secret to making a tasty tomato sauce. Being one myself, of course I have several sauces up my sleeve. But not everyone has time to spend on a sauce that takes hours to prepare.
Simmering a sauce to perfection takes time. Time comes to a standstill while you wait for the sauce to reach the just the right consistency. But when you're hungry, who has the time to wait? With a few simple household ingredients, I can teach you how to make a fresh garden sauce that's takes less than 30 minutes to make.
To prepare this effortless tomato sauce you'll need 4 base ingredients:
- 1 bunch of cherry tomatoes
- 1 small yellow onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 2-3 TBSP olive oil
Begin by heating a medium-sized frying pan on medium heat. Drizzle the olive oil in the pan from the center outwards in a spiral. Reduce the heat under the frying pan to medium-low. While the olive oil is heating up, prepare your vegetables.
Grab the cherry tomatoes and a cutting board. Slice the tomatoes into quarters and set them aside. Don't squeeze out any of the seeds or extra juices. This is going to add a lot of flavor and nutrition to your sauce.
Dice up the onion. Now your olive oil should be the right temperature to add the tomatoes and onions. Be sure the pan is not so hot that it burns the onions.
Grab a hold of the largest clove of garlic you can lay your hands on. If you have no garlic, a few sprinkles of garlic powder will suffice, though it really isn't as good as the real thing. If you did find the garlic, put it on the cutting board and give it a good press with the flat side of a knife. Minc
e the smashed garlic finely and add it to the sauce.
Many other vegetables make a great addition to this fresh sauce. Zucchini, squash, olives, bell peppers, or even spinach can really add another dimension to the texture and taste of the sauce. I use the hot red peppers my grandfather grows. Those things are dangerously hot, but you can substitute crushed red pepper flakes out of a jar to stay on the safe side.
Mix up all the vegetables in the skillet by giving them a good stir. You want a good coating of olive oil on them so they cook correctly. Now put a lid on the skillet. You have arrived at the waiting period. Every couple of minutes, check on the sauce and give it a stir.
The tomatoes will be nicely wilted in just a few minutes as the juice leaks out of them. Ten minutes more and the onions should be translucent and the tomatoes completely shapeless. Please always remember to put the lid back on the pan once you've stirred the sauce. The condensation will keep the tomato juices and any juices from the other vegetables from burning off.
When the onions are tender and the sauce is beginning to resemble the pasta sauces you know and love, take the lid off the pan. Simmer uncovered on medium heat for a few minutes to heat it all up and thicken any watery parts. Please, please never add water to tomato sauce. What you want is to reduce liquid thereby thickening the sauce.
Boil up your favorite pasta in a large pan filled with rapidly boiling salted water and ready yourself to dine. Top off your plate of pasta and sauce with some parmesan cheese and tuck a couple of slices of garlic bread into the creation on your plate. You are now an unofficial Italian and will never, never buy a jar of that red stuff again to top your pasta. And congratulations for making yourself a much healthier, fresher, tastier, Italianer sauce than that jar ever held.
Simmering a sauce to perfection takes time. Time comes to a standstill while you wait for the sauce to reach the just the right consistency. But when you're hungry, who has the time to wait? With a few simple household ingredients, I can teach you how to make a fresh garden sauce that's takes less than 30 minutes to make.
To prepare this effortless tomato sauce you'll need 4 base ingredients:
- 1 bunch of cherry tomatoes
- 1 small yellow onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 2-3 TBSP olive oil
Begin by heating a medium-sized frying pan on medium heat. Drizzle the olive oil in the pan from the center outwards in a spiral. Reduce the heat under the frying pan to medium-low. While the olive oil is heating up, prepare your vegetables.
Grab the cherry tomatoes and a cutting board. Slice the tomatoes into quarters and set them aside. Don't squeeze out any of the seeds or extra juices. This is going to add a lot of flavor and nutrition to your sauce.
Dice up the onion. Now your olive oil should be the right temperature to add the tomatoes and onions. Be sure the pan is not so hot that it burns the onions.
Grab a hold of the largest clove of garlic you can lay your hands on. If you have no garlic, a few sprinkles of garlic powder will suffice, though it really isn't as good as the real thing. If you did find the garlic, put it on the cutting board and give it a good press with the flat side of a knife. Minc
Many other vegetables make a great addition to this fresh sauce. Zucchini, squash, olives, bell peppers, or even spinach can really add another dimension to the texture and taste of the sauce. I use the hot red peppers my grandfather grows. Those things are dangerously hot, but you can substitute crushed red pepper flakes out of a jar to stay on the safe side.
Mix up all the vegetables in the skillet by giving them a good stir. You want a good coating of olive oil on them so they cook correctly. Now put a lid on the skillet. You have arrived at the waiting period. Every couple of minutes, check on the sauce and give it a stir.
The tomatoes will be nicely wilted in just a few minutes as the juice leaks out of them. Ten minutes more and the onions should be translucent and the tomatoes completely shapeless. Please always remember to put the lid back on the pan once you've stirred the sauce. The condensation will keep the tomato juices and any juices from the other vegetables from burning off.
When the onions are tender and the sauce is beginning to resemble the pasta sauces you know and love, take the lid off the pan. Simmer uncovered on medium heat for a few minutes to heat it all up and thicken any watery parts. Please, please never add water to tomato sauce. What you want is to reduce liquid thereby thickening the sauce.
Boil up your favorite pasta in a large pan filled with rapidly boiling salted water and ready yourself to dine. Top off your plate of pasta and sauce with some parmesan cheese and tuck a couple of slices of garlic bread into the creation on your plate. You are now an unofficial Italian and will never, never buy a jar of that red stuff again to top your pasta. And congratulations for making yourself a much healthier, fresher, tastier, Italianer sauce than that jar ever held.
Neil Druker
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