My kitchen window sill basil crop has seen better days. And I have a truly sorry-looking batch of nearly shriveled up tomatoes on the counter that are within days of death.
Trying to be mindful of food waste, I decided to transform this sad produce into pasta sauce! Not that we eat a ton of pasta, but I like to use this in soups and for drenching zucchini noodles. And whatever we don’t eat can be frozen. The list of ingredients is short and the actual prep time is pretty minimal. Just do a few chops of the tomatoes and basil and then let it do its thing on the stove.
Simple and delicious!
Ingredients (makes about 2 quarts)
10 medium-sized tomatoes (roughly chopped)
1 large sweet onion (diced into 1-inch chunks)
1 cup roughly chopped basil
6 ounces tomato paste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
Directions
- In a large pot, saute the onion in the olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes – including the skin and seeds – to the onions, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Let cook for 20 minutes.
- If you want to remove the tomato skins and seeds, let the mixture cool and then press it through a sieve. (Frankly, I think this is too much work and too messy to bother with so I just skip it!) Using either an immersion blender, food processor or regular blender, blend until smooth. Then add in the basil, tomato paste, paprika, garlic powder and salt. Blend again until basil is broken up and evenly distributed (check and clear blender blades for basil build-up!).
- Return pot to the stove, cover and bring to a boil. Then reduce heat to simmer, remove the lid and let cook another 30 – 60 minutes to reduce to desired thickness. Consider using a splatter shield to reduce clean up. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking or burning.
- Let cool and transfer to tightly sealed containers. This will keep in the refrigerator for about 1 week. It can also be frozen.
Leave a Reply