Have you ever tried making homemade canned tomato sauce yourself? This was my first time and I’m hooked. The taste is so fresh and delicious!
This is the first year that I have my own garden. And with garden, I mean balcony where I grow some tomatoes, herbs and chilis in pots. It’s mainly for me and my boyfriend to snack and there hasn’t been to much overproduce. That’s an understatement – especially since I know how much tomatoes one can harvest looking at my parent’s garden. I guess who has the (real) garden, has the work, has the success. My parents have so much tomatoes that they are relieved that I come over from time to time and collect by the bucket. Yes, that’s how much they have! And they have all this different varieties. Heirloom tomatoes. It’s a feast.
So I got so much of this very ripe tomatoes that I thought I make my own homemade canned tomato sauce. If you think about the effort you need to put it: it’s not worth it. If you consider the taste: it’s more than making up for the time! It’s so good!
Ingredients
- 1 kg fresh and ripe tomatoes
- 1 onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 3 Tbsp olive oil
- 100 ml white wine
- 1 tsp dried herbs (oregano, parsley, ...)
- 1 Tbsp fresh basil
- salt, pepper
Instructions
- Bring 2 liters of water to the boil. Put all tomatoes into a metal bowl and pour the hot water over them. Let them rest for 10 mins.
- Now take the tomatoes out and peel them with your fingers or a small knife. If it doesn't come off easy, put them into some more boiling water.
- Chop the onion and the garlic cloves.
- Put the olive oil into a pan and heat it up - make sure not to overheat it!
- Add the onion and let them simmer for 5 mins. Afterwards add the garlic.
- Pour in the white wine and let it infuse for 3 mins.
- Meanwhile chop the tomato flesh into pieces and put them into the pan.
- Add the dried herbs and let it simmer for 2 hours - or until it gets the consistency of a sauce. The tomatoes will release a lot of water and this needs to evaporate.
- Wash the jars with boiling water.
- Add the fresh basil cut into pieces into the hot sauce and spoon it into the jars.
- Close the lid and let it cool upside down - this will close the lid even tighter.
- Enjoy after a week - but it will be preserved for about a year.
This is just the basic recipe and you can adjust it to your liking. I’m thinking about adding some ricotta next time. Or carrots. Or even some spice. Maybe make 3 different kinds.
I made this homemade canned tomato sauce Friday evening. And because we were meeting friends, I just turned off the oven and it would cool down slowly. When I returned home, I turned the stove back on again to let it simmer and switched it off before I went to bed. I did the same the next morning, so I didn’t have to wait this whole time for the water to evaporate. This saved me a lot of time.
If you’re wondering what the dark purple plant is in the picture: it’s basil. I mean, you can’t have all this different kind of tomatoes and then have the same kind of basil with it… Right? This is actually a little bit sweet, so I’m thinking about making some syrup with it as well.
On another note: I finally managed to write my travel diary about my trip to Liguria in July. Now that I set the mood for Italy with this recipe, we can all agree that it’s the perfect timing. (At least that’s what I tell myself once I get disappointed that I haven’t managed to share it earlier.) So stay tuned!
Now. Carry on!
