Recipe: My Go-To Tomato Sauce
Real Baby Food is out this week (yay!), and one of my favorite recipes in it, one I make almost on a weekly basis is the Go-To Tomato Sauce in the Dinner chapter. Inspired by Marcella Hazan’s classic version, this sauce is brilliant in its simplicity. Aside from one cut (slicing an onion in half) there is no chopping involved. Just simmer a can of crushed tomatoes with some aromatics for half an hour–and voila–you have a light, tangy, crowd-pleasing tomato sauce perfect for coating pasta, dipping polenta diamonds, baking eggs, topping pizza, or assembling these Saucy Meatball Sliders. I frequently make a double batch and freeze half to use down the road.
After making it once you will too I bet.
The recipe:
Go-To Tomato Sauce
Pour a 28-ounce can of crushed tomatoes into a medium saucepan. Add 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, ½ yellow onion, 1 peeled garlic clove, ½ teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon sugar, and a sprig of basil. Bring the sauce to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low, and simmer, partially covered, for 25 minutes.
Remove from the heat and let cool for 10 minutes. Remove the onion, garlic, and basil and discard. Makes 2½ cups. Store in the fridge for up to five days, or freeze for up to three months.
Excerpted from Real Baby Food, © 2015 by Jenna Helwig. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
Photo by Lauren Volo
