Best Ever Tomato Sauce Recipe

It seems I have much to share about tomatoes because I love them! I suppose it makes sense that I use them in 5 of my products – the Veglicious Ratatouille is packed with tomatoes and Dahlicious Cherry Tomato Dahl is 17% cherry tomatoes. The Mexilicious range uses them in all 3 delicious recipes, the Black Bean Fiesta being my family’s favourite.

I wanted to share an incredible recipe with you that I was given years ago by my elderly neighbour – it truly is the BEST EVER TOMATO SAUCE recipe. It takes some time to make but I usually go to the markets and buy a whole box of tomatoes to make lots of it to stock up the freezer and hustle up some family members to make it with me! The recipe isn’t exact quantities because it can be made bigger or smaller depending on how many tomatoes you have. I usually do about a 6kg batch and a couple of bunches of each fresh herb.

STEP 1
Take 3kgs of ripe cooking tomatoes (I usually use Roma’s), cut the tops off and cut in half length ways. Lay tomatoes in a single layer in a large roasting pan. Sprinkle with a good salt, add a thin slice of fresh garlic on every tomato half. Then apply generous amounts of chopped fresh continental parsley, rosemary and oregano, dried thyme and dried Italian herb mix.

Repeat for next layer starting with tomatoes until all produce used. Apply a good slug of Olive Oil and cover tightly with foil. Cook in oven at 150 degrees for about 2 hours. Remove foil, give it all a stir, replace foil and cook for a further 45 mins. You’re looking for the tomatoes to have really cooked down and softened.

Remove from oven, allow to cool slightly before putting through a food processor until smooth – set aside.

STEP 2
Heat 2 tbsp Olive Oil in a large pot, chop 2 large red onions and brown. Add 4 cloves of chopped fresh garlic, 2 tspn of sugar, one large jar of tomato paste, 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, pinch of chilli powder (to taste) and stir. Add the tomato mix and 5 bay leaves and stir well, check for salt – add if needed. Cook on low simmer for 40 mins.

STEP 3
Decant into containers to store in freezer or fridge. Use on all the dishes that require a beautiful, rich and tasty tomato sauce.

Nicole xo