Italian tomato sauce

Serves:

Ingredients

• 6kg cooking tomatoes, halved
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 10 large basil leaves, finely chopped or 1½ tbsp dried basil
• 2 oregano stalks, or 1 tbsp dried oregano
• 2 continental parsley stalks, chopped
• 1 cup red wine

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C.

Spray a baking tray with canola oil. Lay the tomatoes cut side up and spray with canola oil.

Place in oven and bake for about 30-40 mins – they should look soft and collapsed when they come out of the oven.

Let them cool. Peel and place in a large stockpot.

Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer over a low heat for 2 hours.

Notes

• If the sauce seems to runny, you can add tomato paste to thicken it slightly. I prefer to use a merlot or cabernet sauvignon style wine.
• If you grow tomatoes, you’ll know that at certain times of the year, you have millions of the delicious salad vegetables ripening at the same time! This recipe is the perfect way to use up these tomatoes that a little past their salad use-by date.
• If you don’t have a veggie garden you can ask your greengrocer for ‘cooking tomatoes’. They will be the over-ripe or bruised tomatoes they take off the shelves. At my farm I get them for 50c a kilo. Sometimes they give me an enormous bag for $1.50 depending on how many they have.
• This sauce is so easy even a novice can do it. It’s a great sauce for: Chicken parmigiana – Pour over crumbed chicken and cover with mozzarella and tasty cheese; Bolognaise sauce – Add to cooked diced onion, browned beef mince and add some tomato paste; Arrabiata sauce – Just add chilli to the tomato sauce.
• This recipe was created by Melissa Klemke for Kidspot, New Zealand’s best recipe finder.

Related Italian pasta recipes:

• Cheesy pasta bake
• Chicken and cheese pasta bake
• Chicken and creamy tomato pasta
• Chorizo pasta
• Deli pasta
• Ear pasta with peas and bacon
• Golf balls with pasta and tomato sauce
• Pasta bits with cherry tomatoes and pesto
• Spaghetti with crunchy bits

Serving Suggestions

Note