How do I turn fresh tomatoes into pasta sauce?

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• HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

  I saw a news show where they just mushed up tomatoes and threw in an italian seasoning mix to taste.

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• dumples@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  When in doubt I look to serious eats for a recipe. Specifically Kenji Lopez-Alt. Here’s his red sauce recipe.

  This used canned but you can just replace it with fresh. My wife and I make a pasta pomodoro where you just slightly cook fresh tomatoes with some garlic and basil. You cook the tomatoes in a pan with olive oil and garlic while your pasta cooks to al dente. Once cooked add some pasta water and cook to desired thickness (uncover to reduce liquid or covered to add). Throw in the pasta cook for 1 minute to cover and throw on basil. We do it with a burrata in the bowl as well. It’s amazing and so easy

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• dkppunk@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Lots of great options have been offered to you already.

  When I look for a recipe, I use noai.DuckDuckGo.com and add food network at the end of the search. It’s usually Alton Brown stuff that comes up.

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• zeppo@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Start by sauteeing some onions in olive oil, with tomato paste if you have it. When they start to get translucent add some diced garlic and cook for a minute. You could also have some celery and carrots in the initial sauté with the onions.

  At this point you can put in the tomatoes, and cook a bit then mash them up, with some water if they’re not that juicy. Some people like to peel the tomatoes… That means put them in a pan of boiling water after scoring them on a few sides, and then taking them out after a minute or two and removing the peels, then putting them into the sauce. I don’t do this. I just remove the peels after the sauce has been cooking for a while.

  Add some salt. I find them my sauce tastes a lot better if I add a quarter cup or so of red wine such as Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon. If you don’t have that, some red wine vinegar helps to stoke the acidity. Sometimes I throw in some onion chunks, some mushrooms, and you should at some point probably add some herbs like garlic and basil.

  Some recipes say to simmer for a really short time like 20 or 30 minutes. I prefer doing it for quite a while, like a few hours, which deepens the flavor and caramelizes the tomatoes for sweetness. One thing that I found I like is to cook it on the range in a Dutch oven for half an hour, and then put it in the oven at about 325 for a couple hours. That makes a really thick sauce. Just be sure if you do it on the range top to stir it often.

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  • treadful@lemmy.zip ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Some people like to peel the tomatoes… That means put them in a pan of boiling water after scoring them on a few sides, and then taking them out after a minute or two and removing the peels, then putting them into the sauce. I don’t do this. I just remove the peels after the sauce has been cooking for a while.

    You can also just fuck it all up with an immersion blender, too.

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    • EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      My partner has a sensory issue with tomatoes, and anything that has a chunk of tomato big enough to feel has to be blended into oblivion.

      Gotta say, I have started liking salsa more…

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  • Provolone@lemmy.zip ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Cut your tomatoes in half, put flat side down in pan. The tomatoes will cook in their own juices and after like 5 minutes the skins basically fall off. You can pull them off with a fork or something and then mash em.

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  • Lennny@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    If you have a blow torch, use that on the tomato skins instead, then use a paper towel to rub the skin off. Not that it matters for a sauce recipe, but it doesn’t cook the outer flesh like boiling does. Great for pico and other fresh tomato preparations.

    Or use cherry tomatoes and the skins become less of a problem. To mass cut cherry tomatoes, put your tomatoes on a plate put another plate over them and run your knife through the seam.

    Oh, a small pinch of red pepper when you’re cooking down your aromatics is a great way to add more depth to your sauce. Especially useful if you don’t have wine on hand.

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    • Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      blow torch!? Just blanch them and peel the skins lol

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  • l3mming@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Finally, some sense.

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  • meco03211@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Pro tip if you hate extra work and planning. Freeze the tomatoes fully. Then let them thaw a bit. Skins peel right off. This messes up the texture of the tomatoes, but is inconsequential for a sauce.

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  • moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Huh, I usually don’t add tomato paste until the very end. Else it burns on the bottom of the pan

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    • RBWells@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Burned tomato paste is delicious though. Burn it.

      When using jarred sauce I usually first brown some tomato paste in olive oil, maybe with an anchovy or two. Then a half bottle of wine and let it reduce. Then the jarred sauce and let it all simmer together while the pasta cooks.

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    • zeppo@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Why would it burn on the bottom of the pan? You sauté with the other stuff, then it gets throughly mixed in. The way I learned was it needs to be sautéed a bit. I guess adding it later would work about as well, idk.

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• Kevlar21@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Anchovies are the secret ingredient to make it savory and delicious. Add one or two to your sauté at the beginning. The sauce will be way better and won’t taste like fish

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• kugel7c@feddit.org ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I have two ways that i semi regularly use:

  Onion fine dice, oil in pan, sweat onion till translucent, dice tomatoes, herbs incl garlic and chilli flakes in the oil for a short while(dealers choice), tomatoes in, lid on for 10min, lid off until you’re at the right consistency, salt, maybe add sugar if not sweet enough.

  Same ingredients in a glass backing dish, oven at 180°C for 35+ mins.

  I don’t care to remove tomato skins so I never do.

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• Danquebec@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  memoriediangelina.com/2012/…/tomato-sauce-101/

  The whole site is a goldmine.

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• random_user@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Sometimes the simpler the better. KISS. www.31daily.com/worlds-best-pasta-sauce/

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  • l3mming@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    5 TABLESPOONS of butter? Jesus. That looks awful.

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    • RBWells@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Browned butter tomato sauce is absolutely delicious.

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    • Leather@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      1 Medium onion, a mother fucking PINCH of salt… And 5, unholy, table spoons of butter.

      I’m not even sure Olive Garden would serve this.

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    • Robin@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Why do you thunk restaurant food tastes so good?

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    • YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      It is surprisingly good. Personally we dice the onions and leave them in, and make sure to use San Marzano tomatoes if you can, but the recipe is solid regardless.

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  • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    OP said fresh tomatoes, not canned.

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    • YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Still works. Figure out how to peel them (easy way is to toss in boiling water for a few seconds+), dice them up, then use the recipe.

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• TheVoiceOfRaison@thelemmy.club ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Do everything in the first paragraph in the nicely detailed guide by Zeppo, then instead put the tomatoes whole into a blender, (even the stalks fuck it, coz they’re filled with goodness) chuck some tomato paste, a little vinegar some sugar, water and pepper and blend the fuck out of it. I like lots paprika in mine. When putting it in the pan cook for as long and slow as possible. At least an hour if you can spare the time. Plum tinned tomatoes are probably the best, but i know you asked about fresh.

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  • GreenBeard@lemmy.ca ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Ooooh, maybe not the stems. It won’t kill you but they’re high in alkaloids that can cause digestive issues. Your recipe sounds like mine, but I finish by wilting just a bit of spinach in it for colour and those good vitamins, minus the toilet tax.

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    • TheVoiceOfRaison@thelemmy.club ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Sounds odd, but i love the smell of the stems. To me they smell more of tomato’s than the actual fruit itself so I just blend it in! Personally never had an issue.

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  • YouTalkinToMe@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Never a good idea to eat green parts of the nightshade family

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  • moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    That’s how you get orange tomato sauce

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    • mbp@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      My wife says it’s like vodka sauce lol

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• e0qdk@reddthat.com ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I usually make quick sauces with my pasta and use whole canned peeled tomatoes. To alter for fresh, I’d score the tomatoes with a knife, then blanch and peel the skin off as the first step.

  My default tomato-based sauce is:

  • olive oil
  • a few whole tomatoes (peeled) – maybe about ~3 decently sized ones?
  • garlic (either fresh minced or garlic powder)
  • dried basil
  • salt
  • 1/4 tsp or so of capers
  • a few kalamata olives
  • pinch of MSG
  • pinch of cayenne pepper

  When using fresh garlic, I add it to the pan first – with garlic powder I add it with the other seasonings. I basically just combine everything, break up the tomatoes with a spatula, and let it cook down on medium heat (stirring occasionally) while I boil my spaghetti – then finish the spaghetti in the sauce.

  I usually make this just for myself and eyeball the ingredients – so unfortunately, I don’t have exact measurements for most of it.

  This is basically a variant of spaghetti puttanesca without anchovies – feel free to add those instead of (or in addition to) the MSG if you’d prefer.

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  • moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    No, don’t add anchovies. For God’s sake

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    • hpx9140@fedia.io ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Anchovies add excellent umami to a good tomato sauce. Quite a small amount is used and the fishy flavour is undetectable in the final product when done right.

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    • Lennny@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      They made a fairly standard puttanesca sauce. That’s a fucking great sauce to know how to do.

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• StillAlive@piefed.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Don’t need search engines for this. Martha Stewart has got you covered.

  https://www.marthastewart.com/1554300/creamy-tomato-sauce

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• TootSweet@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  1. Sell tomatoes.
  2. Use money to buy pasta sauce.
  3. …
  4. Profit!

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• Broadfern@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Adding to the other commenters’ fantastic explanations, some minor tips:

  Spices: basil, oregano, a quarter handful of bay leaves, thyme. Cover the whole pot with a generous layer of each, then stir in. If it gets too acidic, add a tiny dash of sugar. Beyond that is chef’s creativity, make it your own.

  Time: A decent sauce is 3ish hours. Great sauces are all-day sauces. The best sauces are all-day sauces that are re-simmered for half an hour or so the next day.

  Extra: Homemade sauce stores really well. Toss leftovers in a container in the freezer. Will last you a couple months at least.

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  • mossberg590@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Remove the bay leaf before eating

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  • zeppo@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Oh, right. Definitely a bay leaf or two.

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• Beacon@fedia.io ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I've never made a tomato sauce specifically, but ime with sauces - water is the enemy in the final product. So be sure to cook it a lot to get enough water out to make it nicely thick

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• Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Very first result from a basic search: all recipes…com

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• Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Peel them, crush them up, heat while adding spices, simmer until it can coat the back of a spoon without sliding off.

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