Creating Your Favorite Homemade Tomato Sauce.

As we enter fall my family loves the warm and hearty meals.  Tomato sauce or red sauce as they call it is one of their favorites!  I love making a lot at once and then freezing a bunch!  This is helpful on busy nights to still ensure you have a delicious and nutritious dinner! It also makes creating different dinners like chicken parm, lasagna, stuffed shells and meatballs less time consuming because you already have the sauce done.  This is a quick and easy recipe full of nutrition.  With a variety of vegetables mixed in you can ensure you are giving your family a wide range of vitamins and minerals plus fiber!  These are my favorite veggies to use, but you can really use any vegetables, maybe experiment with different ones that you have on hand! 

I have used jarred roasted red peppers when I didn’t have bell peppers and we all enjoyed the taste!  Crush or dice your tomatoes based on what consistency you like.  I always found my kids liked it better when they couldn’t see the vegetables so I would just use an emulsion blender before serving it to smooth all the vegetables out! 

You can dice all of your veggies up in the morning, or the night before if that suits your schedule better and then let it simmer all day.  You will have a warm and filling dinner waiting for you at the end of the day!  This is a great base to make a delicious sauce for anyone.  Experiment and add different vegetables, other mushrooms, your favorite spices or even add meat.  There isn’t one perfect recipe as we all have different palettes, but this is a great start to creating your favorite homemade sauce!

2 small onions diced

5 cloves of garlic minced

2 zucchini diced

2 summer squash diced

1 eggplant peeled if preferred and diced

30 ounces canned organic diced fire roasted tomatoes

4 cups fresh tomatoes peeled and cooked down or organic canned whole peeled tomatoes, cut to preference and liquid reserved

2 tsp balsamic vinegar

⅔ cup fresh basil or ¼ cup dried

⅓ cup fresh oregano or 1 ½ tbsp dried 

1 tbsp fresh parsley or 1 tsp dried

1 tbsp fresh thyme or 1 tsp dried

1 tbsp fresh rosemary or 1 tsp dried

2 lbs cremini mushrooms diced

Reserved juice from tomatoes or veggie broth (keep to the side)

Sea salt and pepper to taste

5 cups of spinach

Cheese of your liking

Add everything except the spinach, cheese and reserved liquid into a large heavy stainless steel or ceramic pot (you don’t want to use cast iron or aluminum because it will interact with the acid in the tomatoes)  Let it simmer away! The longer the better as it allows the flavors to all come together.  Try for at least 2 hours and you can keep it a low simmer for up to 6. If it is too thick for your liking this is when you can add some of the tomato juice you reserved or vegetable broth to thin it out. 

About 20 min before serving, tear up the spinach and add it to the sauce.  It will wilt, but the nutrients are still there.  I told anti-spinach kiddos it was basil and they all fell for it for many years!  Then serve it up with your favorite cheese on top. I love pecorino, but my kids prefer mozzarella or fresh parmesan.  If you like a little spice you can add some crushed red pepper flakes.