Tomato Sauce all winter long!

It’s the end of tomato season people! That realization for me was an instant reaction to go and buy all the organic field tomatoes I could find to make a gigantic batch of tomato sauce….ripe for freezing and using all winter long!

I thought I would share my recipe from yesterday and today’s sauce-making extravaganza. I will warn you that this is not a quick-and-easy recipe. It definitely takes a long time. But I assure you it is well worth the effort. The finished sauce can be used for so many things – over meatballs, with rice/quinoa and vegetables or with your choice of noodles (among so many choices).

If you have time this weekend make a batch and use right away or store in the freezer for that night when you don’t have time to cook anything fresh! You’ll be so thankful it’s in the freezer waiting for you.

This recipe is for a very big batch. I used a Dutch Oven with a 15L capacity. So keep that in mind when getting your ingredients together. If you have a smaller pot – no problem.. just use less onion, garlic and tomatos!

Get all these things ready before you begin:

25-30 organic Field tomatoes

2 medium organic yellow onions

14 cloves of garlic

Handful of thyme (on the stem)

2 Tablespoons of chopped Oregano

3 Tablespoons of chopped Basil

2 Bay Leaves

¼ cup Olive Oil

1 teaspoon Himalayan Sea Salt

Cracked Pepper to taste

Let’s get started!

I will be the first to admit that this first part is a little bit tedious. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But we need to take skin off tomatoes. Once this is done the rest is easy peasy!

Bring a big pot of water to boil. Add in a pinch of sea salt.

Take a big bowl and ½ fill with cold water and a handful of ice. Set beside the stovetop.

Take your washed tomatoes and score the bottom of each one (small ‘X’ on bottom). Add as many tomatoes as will fit into the pot of boiling water.

Leave tomatoes in boiling water until the skin starts to peel. About 1-2 minutes. Once the skin has started to peel, take tomatoes out and put in the bowl of cold water.

Take tomato out of cold water after about 3 minutes and peel the skin off. Cut out hard core of tomato. Set aside in a bowl (as juices will drain out of tomato and you don’t want to lose the juice).

Keep doing this until all the tomatoes have their skin peeled and cores taken out.

hew. You’re done Part 1!

Next up is dicing up the onions and garlic.

I took all my garlic cloves and put them in a mini Cuisinart to chop up super small.

I chose to dice up my 2 onions (although you can put your onion in a Cuisinart too!).

Take your pot and put on top of a medium low heat. Warm up your olive oil.

Once sufficiently warm, add in the onions and garlic. Sauteé until soft. Approximately 5 minutes.

Now add in the bowl(s) of peeled and cored tomatoes. The pot should be pretty full.

Stir tomatoes, onions and garlic together.

Add in the bunch of thyme leaves and bay leaves to tomato mixture.

Add Himalayan Salt and cracked pepper.

Stir and put lid on. Bring to a low boil. Allow mixture to boil for 10 minutes.

Take your oregano and basil and chop (or put in a Cuisinart like I did!).

Add chopped herbs to pot. Stir and bring pot to a low boil (or vigorous simmer).

Now its time to let it boil on low for a while. I would recommend that the pot stays on a low boil for approximately 3 hours. Remember to stir sauce about once every 20 minutes or so.

After 3 hours, take the lid off and let the sauce boil for another hour. This is so some of the water can boil down and the sauce can be thicker.

Now its time to remove the thyme stems. Use your wooden spoon to find all the stems and set aside.

Finally. I like the sauce to be less chunky. So I blend up the sauce in my Vitamix. A couple of batches at a time. Pulse for just a couple of seconds. Add everything back to pot. Continue to simmer for another hour.

I stored all my sauce in old mason jars that I have kept for just this occasion! If you are going to freeze then make sure you only fill each jar ¾ way full so that there is room for expansion. Also – make sure that you let the sauce COMPLETELY cool before putting in the freezer.

Enjoy!!