If you want to make amazing tomato sauce with deep complex flavors and will be home all day and can stir it every couple hours, this is the recipe for you. It’s another recipe from Kenji and seriouseats and it really out shines most other tomato sauces I’ve had, and really blows the jarred sauces out of the water.
Ingredients
- 4 28-ounce cans of whole peeled tomatoes
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 4 tbps butter
- 1 head garlic
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 tbps dried oregano
- 1 medium carrot cut into large chunks
- 1 medium onion cut in half
- 1 large stem fresh basil
- Salt and Pepper
- 1/2 cup fresh basil and/or parsley minced
Nutrition
- Total Calories: 1392
- Weight: 3285g
Directions
- Adjust oven rack to lower position and preheat oven to 300°F. Place tomatoes in a large bow and crush or blend to desired consistency. Reserve 3 cups in sealed container in refrigerator for later.
- Heat olive oil and butter over medium heat in a large Dutch oven until butter is melted. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until softened and fragrant but not browned, about 2 minutes. Add pepper flakes and oregano and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, carrot, onion, and basil, and stir to combine. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer over high heat.
- Cover Dutch oven with lid slightly ajar and transfer to oven. Cook, stirring once every 1 to 2 hours, until reduced by about half and darkened to a deep red, 5 to 6 hours (reduce oven temperature if the sauce is bubbling too rapidly or the browned bits begin to turn too dark.
- Remove from oven. Using tongs, discard onion halves, carrots, and basil stems. Add reserved tomatoes to sauce and stir to combine. Season generously with salt and pepper and stir in minced herbs along with additional olive oil as desired. Serve immediately, or allow to cool at room temperature, transfer to airtight containers, and refrigerate for up to 1 week. Sauce can also be frozen in sealed containers for up to 6 months.
Notes: Serve over pasta, or on pizza.
Step by Step
The only special equipment you’ll need for this recipe is a dutch oven, and dutch ovens are not only for making sauce, I like to make bread in them and they are also great for deep frying. The ingredients are also pretty simple:
The first step is to move the oven racks so the dutch oven can fit in there on the bottom rack and preheat the oven to 300F, and don’t worry if you forget about it, 300F isn’t very hot (for ovens) and only takes a couple minutes. Next you want to get your tomatoes to their desired consistency for the sauce. Kenji suggests using your hands and crushing them, but I like smoother sauce so I put them through the immersion blender. This probably messes with the flavor somehow, but so far I haven’t gotten any complaints.
Next up, reserve 3 cups for later. The first time I made this sauce I forgot this step, and the sauce still came out really good. It wasn’t as fresh tasting, but that might have been in my mind, because I’m not sure I could tell the difference between them on a pizza.
Now you can chop up the garlic (probably the longest part of hands on time for this recipe), slive the onion, carrot and get your dried spices ready.
Heat the olive oil and butter in the dutch oven until the butter is melted and throw in the garlic and saute for a few minutes.
Then add the spices and saute for another minute.
Next you can add the tomatoes, onion, carrot and basil stem. Give it a good mix and bring it up to simmering.
Now place it in the oven with the lid slightly ajar and come back and stir once every hour or two. It will get darker and reduce.
Try to stir the brown bits back into the sauce.
Put the lid back on and place back in the oven for another hour or two. Repeat this process for about 6 hours.
Before you take it out for the last time get your fresh herbs ready
And here it is after about 6 hours in the oven, reduced by about half.
Remove the onion halves, carrot chunks and basil stem (if you can find it). Now you can add the reserved portion of tomatoes from earlier and the minced herbs. Don’t forget a generous helping of salt and pepper. And a good stir and all done.
Stir some more to make sure it is smooth (and you got all the carrot chunks out) and taste to make sure it is the amazing tomato sauce promised.
Enjoy on any foods where tomato sauce is called for.
