Simple Tomato Sauce
Simple Tomato Sauce
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
- 6 medium cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- Two 28-ounce can crushed red tomatoes
- 1/4 cup sugar
- zest of one lemon
In a large pot heat olive oil with red pepper flakes, sea salt and chopped garlic. Stir while you heat the saucepan over medium-high heat, saute just 45 seconds or so until everything is fragrant – you don’t want the garlic to brown. Stir in the tomatoes and heat to a gentle simmer, this takes just a couple of minutes. Add the 1/4 cup sugar. Remove from heat and carefully take a taste and add more salt if necessary. Stir in the lemon zest. Makes about one quart of tomato sauce. Makes about two quarts of sauce and serves 16. Serve over penne pasta.
If desired reduce olive oil to create a low fat tomato sauce. The original recipe called for 3 teaspoons of red pepper flakes. This is too spicy for most crowds. Start with just 1/2 a teaspoon and add more if a spicy sauce is desired. It is best to use organic crushed tomatoes that are not canned with herbs. This gives the sauce a very bright and clean tomato flavor. Minced garlic sold in a jar is an okay substitute for the chopped garlic. Use 1/2 a teaspoon of minced garlic for each clove of garlic. Reduce the amount of olive oil if desired. Thank you 101cookbooks for this simple recipe that I was able to modify to our taste.
Other notes. For a RS activity I used one 23 oz container of olive oil, 3 teaspoons red pepper flakes, 5 teaspoons sea salt, 16 teaspoons minced garlic, three 101 ounce cans S&W crushed tomatoes, 1 1/3 cups sugar and the zest of 5 lemons. We would have been half with that amount. We made enough to fill two large crock pots but we would have been fine with just one large crock pot. This made roughly 22 cups of sauce. Enough to feed close to 80-100 people. For our crowd (about 80 women) I would triple the recipe above