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Homemade Marinara Sauce

Homemade Marinara Sauce.  You might be thinking, "Why on earth would I ever want to make my own homemade marinara sauce?”  I can think of a few reasons, because you want to see if you can, because it is better for you, because you want to know what is in it, because it tastes better, because you want to save money.  Whatever your reason, you have come to the right place. 

This is such a simple thing to do you are going to be asking yourself, "Why have I not tried this sooner?”

First, you need tomatoes.  LOTS of tomatoes!  If you are planning on making and storing tomato sauce I suggest 25 to 35 pounds of tomatoes. 

This was my first time to make marinara sauce and I only had 11 tomatoes that I had frozen earlier in the week.  If you would like to know how to freeze tomatoes see my previous post oh tomatoes. I was hoping I might get enough sauce to make spaghetti or lasagna but it turned out I did not have enough sauce so I had to come up with an alternative.  More on that later.

So, what you need to make your homemade marinara sauce. 

• 25 to 35 pounds of tomatoes
• cutting board
• knife
• large bowl
• colander
• large pot

The first thing you do is start by going to my post for freezing tomatoes following my directions up to the point you put them in the freezer.  If you want to freeze them and make the sauce later you can do that.  However, if you would like to go ahead and make your sauce then continue reading.  

Frozen Tomatoes

Begin by taking your freshly seeded and cleaned or previously frozen tomatoes and put them in a large stock pot and bring to a boil stirring occasionally.  

Tomatoes Releasing Liquid

Your tomatoes will begin to release a lot of liquid.  Turn the pot down to a low to medium heat and let simmer.  This is not a process that is over quickly.  You will have time to do other things.  Just remember to every now and then go by and stir the pot and maybe take a large slotted spoon and squeeze some more liquid out of the tomatoes.  I set my timer for every 15 minutes.

Your house will begin to fill with a bright and amazing sent of tomatoes.  If I have not mentioned it; this takes a very long time but it is worth it!  When was the last time you bought spaghetti sauce at the store for .71?  Once you break down the cost of making your marinara sauce that is about what you spend per jar of sauce, including the jars.   

Tomatoes Breaking Down

See here, the tomatoes are beginning to break down.  Just keep on cooking.  Remember, low and slow is the way to go.  If you turn up the heat to high you might burn your tomatoes and no one wants there house to smell like burnt tomatoes.  The real reason you take your time is to conserve nutrients.  If you have the heat too high it will break down any nutritional value you want in your homemade sauce.  At that point you might as well just go buy a jar of store bought sauce. 

Getting Close!

At this point you can see that the liquid is almost gone but the tomatoes still have not completely broken down.

Frozen Tomato Juice

This is the liquid I froze after cleaning, seeding and draining the tomatoes.  I decided to go ahead and add it back in to my tomato sauce to give the tomatoes more time to break down. 

Looking Good!

I took a large slotted spoon and began smashing the tomatoes and squeezing out all the liquid I could.  When it looked like I had just enough to cover my pan I decided to go ahead and put it through the food processor.  This is not what I would have done if I had 20 pounds of tomatoes to begin with.  But such I started with such a small amount I wanted the sauce to be as thin as possible. 

Nice Smooth Sauce

Once I put my sauce through the food processor and got it to the consistency I wanted I added it back to my pan.  Again, if you were cooking large amounts of tomatoes you would skip that step. Just let it keep cooking until it looks like this.

At this point you need to decide what sort of seasoning you want to add.  To finish my sauce off I added salt, course ground pepper, frozen oregano, rosemary and basil that I froze earlier in the week in my ice cube tray and just a little lime juice.

If I had been making this store in jars I would have sautéed fresh onion and garlic that had been fine chopped and then cooked in olive oil then added it to the sauce before canning.  The amount you chop depends on how chunky you want you sauce. 

My Finished Sauce.

• salt
• pepper
• oregano
• basil
• onion
• garlic
• lime
• canning jars

See how bright the colors are, the bright green of the fresh herbs and the rich color of the tomatoes.  This is what it is all about and the flavor is amazing! 

You might be wondering why I don't have any meat in my sauce.  If you are canning your sauce you never want to put meat in the jar before canning.  It increases the risk of the jar going bad and honestly the meat never tastes right.  It is best to cook the meat separately.  Then add the sauce towards the end. 

Did you notice how little sauce my 11 medium/large tomatoes made?  This is why you want to make sure you start with enough tomatoes.  This would never be enough to mix with ground meat and pour over spaghetti and it would never be enough to make lasagna.  However, it was just enough to top my Eggplant Parmesan. 

Eggplant Parmesan

Ok, I am sure you are thinking... "What about the canning and how do I make that yummy looking Eggplant Parmesan?  I have not canned anything in a while so I have no pictures to post of the process, YET!  I plan on doing this again with the appropriate number of tomatoes. If you were to try and do this for a single meal, I would begin with 25 or 30 tomatoes because my 11 probably came out to about 1/3 of a jar of sauce. 
 
So let me know what you think and how yours turns out.  Send me any questions you have about the process.

In the meantime...

Happy Cooking!