This is another post about preserving summer produce, this time with tomatoes. Tomatoes, like peaches, will be around for a few more weeks so now is the time to make tomato sauce. I place my tomato sauce in quart containers and freeze it. However you can certainly preserve the sauce in jars using a canner too.

I know a there are a lot of people from Berkeley Heights and the surrounding communities who are steeped in the Italian-American tradition of making tomato or red sauce. I also am aware that people have very strong opinions regarding what exactly goes in a classic red tomato sauce. I’ve tried making tomato sauce a number of times in a number of different ways but I really like this recipe for making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. It’s very basic and pretty easy, though a bit time consuming.

I skin the tomatoes, chop them, and slow cook them with garlic, olive oil, and a splash of white wine. I add a touch of red pepper flake but you can certainly omit that if you prefer. I add fresh basil at the very end. Otherwise I try to keep this base sauce very neutral so that I can adjust it later when I use it in other dishes. However, as is, this is a great red sauce to use for marinara or other pasta dishes. I used it while making pizza the other night and it made a wonderful base. In fact, I liked it so much I went and bought more tomatoes and made another large batch.

I used about 10 pound of tomatoes, which I purchased from Vito’s produce in Berkeley Heights. You can scale this way up or way down depending on your needs. Just realize that although ten pounds of tomatoes sounds like quite a bit, they cook down and reduce significantly. So, ten pounds of tomatoes yielded about 2 quarts of actual sauce. Also regardless of how much you make, it will still take a decent amount of time…so, you may as well make a bunch. It freezes very well!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →