How To Make A Simple And Healthy Pasta Sauce
Posted by Neil Druker in Uncategorized, tags: cooking, food, health food, Neil Druker, pasta sauce, recipes, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, UncategorizedNot all of us have the privilege of being Italian. It seems every Italian has the secret to making a tasty tomato sauce. Being one myself, of course I have several sauces up my sleeve. But not everyone has time to spend on a sauce that takes hours to prepare.
While that rich smelling flavorful sauce is simmering away on the stove for hours, the aroma fills the house and fills the people in it with gnawing hunger. When you are hungry, why wait hours for a sauce when you can get the real thing in under 30 minutes. I am going to tell you how.
To make this tasty pasta sauce all you need is four basic ingredients:
- 1 bunch of cherry tomatoes - 1 small yellow onion - 1 clove of garlic - 2-3 TBSP of olive oil
Start your sauce by heating up a skillet of medium size over medium heat. Drizzle the olive oil into the center of the skillet and turn it about so the bottom of the pan is evenly covered with the oil. Reduce the heat a bit and while the olive oil is warming up, prepare your vegetables.
Grab the cherry tomatoes and a cutting board. Slice the tomatoes into quarters and set them aside. Don’t squeeze out any of the seeds or extra juices. This is going to add a lot of flavor and nutrition to your sauce.
Time to dice up the onion. The olive oil should be about right by now so throw in the diced onions and quartered tomatoes. Be sure the heat isn’t too high. You don’t want to burn the onions.
Find the biggest clove of garlic you have. If you don’t have any, a sprinkle of garlic powder is just as good. With the flat side of a knife, carefully smush the garlic clove. Dice the garlic into fine pieces then add it to the sauce.
Many other vegetables make a great addition to this fresh sauce. Zucchini, squash, olives, bell peppers, or even spinach can really add another dimension to the texture and taste of the sauce. I use the hot red peppers my grandfather grows. Those things are dangerously hot, but you can substitute crushed red pepper flakes out of a jar to stay on the safe side.
Stir all the vegetables together in the skillet to give them a good coating of the olive oil so they will properly cook. Now it’s wait time, but every few minutes or so check the sauce to see what it looks like and give it a stir.
The tomatoes will be nicely wilted in just a few minutes as the juice leaks out of them. Ten minutes more and the onions should be translucent and the tomatoes completely shapeless. Please always remember to put the lid back on the pan once you’ve stirred the sauce. The condensation will keep the tomato juices and any juices from the other vegetables from burning off.
When the onions are tender and the sauce is beginning to resemble the pasta sauces you know and love, take the lid off the pan. Simmer uncovered on medium heat for a few minutes to heat it all up and thicken any watery parts. Please, please never add water to tomato sauce. What you want is to reduce liquid thereby thickening the sauce.
Now throw your favorite pasta in a huge pot of boiling salted water, get out the colander and you are almost ready to eat. Put some parmigiano reggiano cheese on top of the pasta and sauce and place a slice or two of garlic bread on your plate. This sauce will definitely bring out the Italiano in you even if there really isn’t any. You will never buy another jar of pasta sauce.
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