Thermomix Tomato Sauce - ThermoFun | Thermomix Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good tomato sauce? ›

Starting with good quality tomatoes and crushing them by hand offers great flavor and texture later on. The combination of butter and oil releases fat-soluble aromatics and gives the sauce a creamy texture. Slowly cooking the sauce in the oven creates rich caramelization without burning.

Add fresh herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary, bay leaf), and let them simmer to give a punch of fresh flavor.

Peel and finely slice the garlic, then place in a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Stir regularly until lightly golden. Pour in the tomatoes, either scrunching them through your hands, or breaking them up with a wooden spoon. Let it simmer on a low heat until your pasta is cooked.

Toasted and ground fennel seeds, for example, can deepen a sauce's intensity and offer a suggestion of Italian sausage without actually adding any meat (as with the dried herbs, most spices will bring more flavor to the sauce if you toast them in oil or butter first, though this does add marginally more time and effort ...

Add a little milk to tomato sauce for a sweeter taste to offset the acidity of the tomatoes. This is a well-kept secret amongst Italian grandmothers. In northern Italy, Bolognese sauce is never made without milk! It can be added at the beginning or end of cooking.

Nutmeg. Nutmeg is the key to boosting earthiness and adding a touch of nuttiness to your spaghetti sauce. Nutmeg also has a slightly sweet flavor, which we know goes great with acidic canned tomatoes. Overall, it accentuates the other ingredients in the sauce and adds complexity.

Flat or bland sauce likely needs a hit of something acidic to lift and enhance its flavors, such as a small splash of high-quality, flavorful vinegar, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, or a few drops of not-too-fiery hot sauce.

Tomato sauce has an inherent dilemma: Long-simmered sauces have complex flavor, but simmering over a long period of time cooks out the very thing that makes a ripe tomato so special—its bright, sweet taste.

Fresh tomatoes: Try to stick with plum tomatoes, like Roma, San Marzano, and cherry tomatoes. Be sure to peel the tomatoes (and remove the seeds, if you like, but it's not necessary). White sugar: The sugar will balance out the acidity and give the sauce a hint of sweetness.

Southern-cuisine expert and cookbook author Diana Rattray has created more than 5,000 recipes and articles in her 20 years as a food writer. In a salad or sandwich, you don't need peeled tomatoes. But, if you're making a fresh tomato sauce or stewed tomatoes, the tomatoes should be peeled, cored, and seeded.

How long should you let homemade tomato sauce simmer? ›

I give a cooking range of 30 minutes to 90 minutes (1 1/2 hours). Shorter cooking times will yield a thinner sauce with a fresher tomato flavor; longer cooking times will thicken your sauce and give it a cooked flavor. Watch your sauce as it simmers and stop cooking when it reaches a consistency and flavor you like.

The reason for sprinkling a pinch of sugar into a simmering saucepan of tomatoes is simple: sugar cuts the acidity of the tomatoes and creates an overall more balanced sauce. The exact acid levels in tomatoes can vary quite a bit depending on whether they're fresh or canned, the tomato variety, and the time of year.

More to the point, the USDA recommends adding 1 Tb of lemon juice per pint of sauce. In fact, the USDA, on a site hosted by the University of Georgia, explains that the pH of canned tomato sauce must be at or below 4.6 to prevent the growth of botulism.

It's a little controversial, but all the most balanced tomato sauces have sugar—sometimes naturally, sometimes not. For any marinara purists, adding a bit of sugar to the sauce may seem sacrilegious. But the truth is, sometimes tomato sauce needs a bit of sugar.

Some cooks swear by adding a spoonful of sugar to overly acidic tomatoes; others like to add a glug of red wine for increased depth of flavor. But have you ever heard of sprinkling some instant coffee granules into your spaghetti sauce? It's a thing, and it just might revolutionize your pasta nights.

Red wine gives the sauce added richness and robustness, while white wine imparts a fruity flavor. Incorporate the wine early in the cooking process, just after the vegetables have softened. Then, let the wine cook down and reduce almost all the way.

Tomato sauce has an inherent dilemma: Long-simmered sauces have complex flavor, but simmering over a long period of time cooks out the very thing that makes a ripe tomato so special—its bright, sweet taste.