How do you tomato sauce? (fresh tomatoes)

Cooking Discussions
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I’m curious how others make their home made tomato sauce - from fresh tomatoes. . . .

My local farm stand is selling big baskets of tomatoes right now. I bought 2 . . so about 16-20 pounds of roma tomatoes. (They are also selling beefsteak type tomatoes for less!) So today I’m turning them into tomato sauce.

My go to recipe is Marcella Hazan’s recipe which essentially just tomatoes, a halved onion (which is removed at the end), butter, and salt. It is delicious, but i do add a sprig or two of basil to mine as well (removed at the end).

Any other go to recipes? (I may make more tomato sauce but I’m also considering tomato soup - but that’s another topic I guess).

If you do make tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes - I’m also curious how you prep the tomatoes for the sauce. Every year I seem to do it slightly differently - I’ve done:
– blanched to peel the skin, then just chopped
– blanched to peel and then also dig out the seeds with my hands
– slided raw and passed through a food mill (not doing that again)
– this time I sliced in half the long way, cooked in a pot for 10-20 minutes (it was 18 lbs) to soften and then passed through the food mill

The food mill after cooking a little too soften the tomatoes and loosen the skin seemed to leave quite a bit of “stuff” behind (skin, seed, and probably tougher cores), which maybe is a good thing, but made we think I might go back to blanching to peel and then letting the heat break down the rest . . . . we’ll see how it turns out.

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Depends on my mood and patience. I just recently made a corn/tomato sauce with heirloom cherry tomatoes, where I didn’t bother skinning them (too tiny).

That said, I’m not a huge fan of skins in my sauce, so I will do like you & blanch to peel, but I don’t seed them (I remove the tougher/fibrous green parts, however). I chop them into manageable pieces or chunks and let them cook down.

The sauce starts with shallots & garlic sautéed in olive oil, maybe a few anchovies to melt into the oil, and RPF. Then I often toast a little tomato paste before adding a splash of open red wine, letting that reduce & adding the tomatoes, s&p, oregano.

That’s pretty much it, but I sometimes leave out the anchovies, or the tomato paste.

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I roast, usually for a long time if I’m not using paste tomatoes, with onions garlic, olive oil , s&p. Depending on what I am making I may puree or put through food mill.

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I chop and roast the tomatoes in the oven.

I have been roasting or sauteeing the onions and garlic separately lately, then I add them to the tomatoes a little later.

I haven’t been using food mill or blender. We eat it rustic and chunky.

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starts like:

DSC_1876s
DSC_1876s1500×1226 174 KB

ends like:
DSC_2231
DSC_22313840×2543 547 KB

gets frozed like:
DSC_1016s
DSC_1016s800×535 56.6 KB

a little salt is the only add - because it eventually gets used for pizza/stewed tomato/pasta+ . . .

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Do you blend in some way (stick blender/etc)? Or keep the large skin pieces in there as is?

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I roast with oo, garlic and herbs and run through a food mill. Works great if I have a lot of cherry tomatoes.

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I do the same but sauté some sliced garlic in olive oil, then add cored and quartered tomatoes and cook down. Food mill, then freeze.

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depends on the end use - anything that needs more ‘saucy’ gets cooked a bit further, then stick blendered & seasoned.

for pizza, it is thawed, drained in a sieve i.e. mechanically dewatered, then heated and stick blended - that produces a ‘fresh’ tomato “sauce” for a pizza. seriously different and tastier than any ‘jarred’ sauce. I prefer to sauce a pizza with hot tomato (whatever) - helps with a crispy crust…

stewed & similar - heated, perhaps reduced. seasoned, skins and all . . .