Mama Mia!
The HH and I made a HUGE and I do mean HUGE batch of heirloom tomato sauce the other day and no, I didn’t can it. Not this batch of sauce anyway. We have a giant pasta feed coming up, and I wanted to make sure we had enough tomato sauce on hand for the party so I went ahead and used up our first giant tomato harvest to make it.
If you have an enormous amount of tomatoes on hand and your looking for an awesome heirloom tomato sauce recipe, this is the one.
Ingredients
15 pounds heirloom tomatoes
5 {6 ounce} cans tomato paste {I like Cento brand}
2 pounds zucchini, chopped
8 ounces heirloom carrots, chopped
6 ounces Swiss chard
3 onions, chopped
1 head of garlic, minced
1 {12 ounce} jar red roasted peppers, drained and chopped
2 cups fresh basil, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1/2 bottle Merlot wine {optional}
Directions
In a 12 or 16 quart stock pot saute the onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes. Add carrots, chard, zucchini, red peppers and about half of the tomatoes and cook for another 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add remaining ingredients, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 4 to 5 hours stirring the sauce every so often.
Once the sauce has thickened up and turned a nice deep red color, remove the stock pot from the stove and let cool for 15 minutes.
Using an immersion hand blender, puree your sauce until nice and smooth.
This heirloom tomato sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days or packaged in freezer containers and stored in the freezer for up to 6 months.
*This sauce is not recommend for canning. Stay tuned for one that is.
This handy dandy Fruit and Vegetable Chopper saved me a ridiculous mount of time in the kitchen as I put this recipe together. I pretty much want to marry it I love it so much.
Ginelle Showalter says
Did you peel all the tomatoes?
crystal g says
It doesn’t look as if you took nthe skins ofd for this recipe. I wondered how that worked.
Mavis Butterfield says
I did not take the skins off since the sauce it pureed at end. There is no reason too. 🙂
sheila says
I’m assuming it’s optional to use 1/2 the bottle of merlot on the sauce IF there’s any leftover or just use it all herself? 😉
Lauren says
One for the pot and one for the cook! That’s my philosophy anyay 🙂
Robin in SoCal says
This looks amazing very similar to mine. I love that you put other veggies in the sauce too. I will pin this one for sure, thanks for sharing. I hope you are feeling more like your self after your surgery. I personally think dentists are evil.
Mavis Butterfield says
Ha! I am feeling better. One side is still a little sore though. As for the extra veggies in the sauce… bring it on! 😉
Annette Shaw says
Are those large tomatoes frozen? Can you do that if your using them for sauce?
Mavis Butterfield says
I do it all the time. 🙂
Joy says
I had no idea you could do that with tomatoes (freezing for sauce)! That is super awesome. I have some sitting on the counter right now that I was getting anxious about because I didn’t think I was going to be able to use them before they went bad. I feel like my life just changed a little bit! Ha! It’s like going your whole life and never realizing what soy sauce is made of and then you find out that DUH, it’s soy beans. It’s the little things really 🙂
Laura Z says
I love the frozen tomato idea… perfect for too many tomatoes. I make a similar sauce, but I chuck everything in the oven on low heat with olive oil and herbs, and then puree everything at the end in the food processor. You really get that flavor of roasted garlic. I love not having to peel the tomatoes, and I am sure that it’s healthier to eat that extra fiber! For future pots of chili, I’ll leave out the italian herbs and add a few hot peppers instead. Then, I just label it and chuck it in the freezer.
Crystal says
I am trying to figure out how to get around peeling the tomatoes. just throw all tomatoes in the pot and then puree, blend or food mill once its done cooking?
Mavis Butterfield says
That’s what I do. 🙂
Christopher says
I’m glad I reread the comments and saw that you used frozen tomatoes. I was going to ask, “Cool. What variety is that fuzzy white tomato?”
Siobhan says
Me too! I’m on the lookout for interesting types to plant, so I was going to ask.
Joy Burnsworth says
Why can’t you freeze this sauce? I use fresh tomato’s peeled with all the veggies you use and freeze for
later use.
Mavis Butterfield says
You can freeze this sauce.
Leann says
Two questions: 1.Would it work just as well if I substituted summer squash for the zucchini? and 2. My husband doesn’t care for my homemade tomato sauce because he thinks it is too sweet. Is this a sweet sauce? I’ve heard adding vinegar reduces sweetness (maybe I didn’t add enough to my last batch…). Does the Merlot work to reduce sweetness?
Mavis Butterfield says
Summer squash would be fine and no, I don’t think this sauce is sweet. 🙂
Trixi Agrios says
Mavis, I noticed you leave the green stems on the cherry tomatoes. Is that so, you cook them stems and all?
I usually chuck everything in a pot and cook it till soft and out it through a foodmill to get rid of the skins and stems. an immersion blender is faster and less messy and I’ll go that route in future if you can confirm that leaving the stems on doesn’t spoil the sauce.
Mavis Butterfield says
Hi Trixi, I do remove the stems. I think you are probably seeing flecks of basil in the sauce pot. I do leave all the skins on though because in the end I use an immersion blender. 🙂
Katie says
Hi Mavis!
Do you think a VitaMix would work well to blend it all together? I don’t have an immersion blender.
Mavis Butterfield says
Yes it would work great!
Jennifer Crump says
Just a couple of questions…Why exactly can you not can this sauce? Would you be able to at least freeze it? Oh and do you think this would be a good sauce with stuffed shells?
Mavis Butterfield says
I have never canned this sauce recipe, but I do freeze it. 🙂
PattyB says
When you can anything, the rule of thumb is to use the method for the ingredient that needs the longest and highest pressure. In this case, the veggies other than tomatoes would be canned using a pressure canner with time and pressure for processing the veggies, i.e., carrots, zucchini, etc. If it has meat in in, then the method would be geared for the meat, regardless if it has some high acid ingredient in it So I would pressure can this recipe to process carrots.
Ruth Ward says
Personally, I like to use a crock pot on low and let it cook for a couple of days. The first 2 lbs of skinned and de-seeded tomatoes are pureed in a food processor. I only use the meat of the tomatoes, that way I get a nice thick sauce.
You can add the other vegetables in the food processor at the same time. As the sauce cooks down, I keep adding the meat of the tomatoes. This creates a chunky tomato sauce. I don’t use tomato paste, because most canned tomato paste has loads of sugar, which I like to avoid. Besides there’s plenty of natural sugar in the raw tomato anyway.
Susan says
Thanks for posting this recipe Mavis! I have tomatoes coming out my ears! 🙂 A good problem to have by the way!
ilona says
I have one of those Fruit & Vegetable Choppers and it’s awesome … especially when you have to cut/dice a lot of produce …
Jeffery Totten says
This sounds amazing! Do you have a small batch post of this recipe?