Most of the recipes I share came about through necessity, trying to stay away from sugar.

Jarred pasta sauce has a lot of sugar in it and I don’t understand why, it doesn’t need it. I think it tastes better without it.

The only reason I can figure is companies and some cooks add sugar into pasta sauce to offset the tartness or sometimes bitter taste of the tomatoes due to their acidic nature.

Removing the tart taste

Sometimes you will have a tart or bitter sauce, it all depends on the tomatoes that are used, but instead of sugar, I’ve found that adding some more salt or a splash of red wine vinegar offsets the taste very well.

We use this homemade sauce for pasta, pizza, meatball subs. Pretty much anything you’d need a nice red sauce for.

This recipe is also a great way to use up all those fresh tomatoes coming out of the garden!

Add cooked ground beef or ground turkey for a complete meal!

Homemade Pasta Sauce

Recipe by Whitney – Willowbottom.com

Prep time

25

minutes

Cooking time

1

hour 

Total time

1

hour 

25

minutes

Ingredients

• 6-8 Tomatoes Roma, or other that you like. You can also use (1) 24oz can of crushed tomatoes

• 2 sprigs Parsley Roughly chopped or 1 tsp dried

• 1 Sprig Thyme Fresh or 1/2 tsp dried

• 2 Whole Bay leaves fresh or dry

• 1 Sprig Fresh Oregano Roughly chopped or 1 tsp dried

• 1/3 Cup Fresh basil Roughly chopped

• 2 Cloves Garlic roughly chopped

• 1 Large Carrot Diced

• 1 Medium Onion Diced

• 1 Splash Olive oil

• 1 Tsp Salt or more to taste

Directions

• If using fresh tomatoes – Start by preheating the oven to 350° – Wash tomatoes and roast for 20 minutes in the oven or until soft
• Add a splash of olive oil to a saucepan and heat over medium
  
• Add onion and carrots and cook until browned
• Add garlic and let it brown for a minute
• While the onions, carrots, and garlic are cooking. Place roasted tomatoes into a food processor and pulse a few times to break tomatoes apart.
• Add tomatoes into the pot with all the herbs
• Simmer on low for 1 hour
• Taste the sauce as it cooks, add more salt as needed
  When the sauce is cooked, remove the bay leaves and the spines of the herbs and serve!

Notes

• If you like a smooth sauce, blend until smooth then serve
• It’s always important to remove the bay leaves before serving. Bay leaves can cut your intestines if swallowed whole or in large chunks.
• Canned crushed tomatoes are excellent in this recipe as well. Feel free to use them instead of the romas.
• If your sauce comes out bitter or tart add a slash of red wine vinegar.