DIY Natural Tomato Sauce

Welcome to Day #16 of PureFormulas’ Sugar Crush Challenge: 30 days of tips, recipes, and tools to help you cut down on sugar and crush those cravings!

Tomatoes go great with everything!

It’s one of the most versatile produce items that chefs love to work with; the possibilities are endless! You can use it for salads, to add color and flavor to your dishes, make soup, jams, and my favorite: sauces. Although tomatoes have amazing nutrients including vitamins C and E, and are also rich in carotenoids such as lycopene and lutein, tomato sauces and paste many times are not that healthy and can have good amounts of sugar.

This tradition may have started with the nonnas of Italy that added just a pinch of sugar to make the tomato sauce less acidic to the taste. But nowadays that pinch has turned into spoons of sugar.

So we say why not make your very own tomato sauce? Tomatoes are fruits and have natural sweetness as is. We at PureFormulas have an easy way of making your own and will share our secret recipe with you. The best part is that it’s sans sugar and will taste a lot better than the ready-to-use one!

Tip: When needing to be practical, make larger quantities and keep in freezer.

Homemade tomato sauce recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3-4 ripe organic tomatoes (cubed)
• 1/2 small onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• Basil (fresh or dried)
• Oregano
• Salt and Pepper to taste

Instructions:

In a medium pan, cook onions and garlic with a little bit of oil on medium heat.

Add the rest of the ingredients in the pan and cover with lid until tomatoes soften and are in a paste consistency. Make sure to stir once in a while.

I know some might have been expecting exact measurements of all ingredients and wonder what consistency you should be aiming for. But for tomato sauce I think that it really depends on your preferences. The type of tomatoes, the amount of salt and pepper that goes into the sauce, along with what consistency it should be will greatly depend on your preferences. I like my tomato sauce to still have little pieces of tomato, which is why I don’t blend it in the end. But if you wish to have a more liquid consistency, blend all the ingredients after it cools down a bit.

As for the amount of salt, I usually start with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and make the tweaks if needed later to get it to the taste desired. It’s always better to initially add smaller amounts of salt and slowly adjust it then ending up with a salty dish.

Depending on the size, 3-4 tomatoes should yield about a cup of tomato sauce.

And now that you have your fresh, healthy and yummy tomato sauce, it’s your turn to add it to your favorite dishes!

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