Why you should make tomato sauce from scratch: tips and recommendations

The first time I tasted anything resembling a Sunday sauce—that Italian-American icon, a meaty tomato sauce that simmers all day—I was 14, and it was in a lasagna cooked by my friend’s sister-in-law. Neither she nor I are Italian: we were living in Karachi at the time, and the recipe in question was from a well-loved, stained photocopied page that probably came from an old Australian cookbook, given the quick-make lamington recipe next to it. But that rich ragù erased all memories of previous sauces and led me down a dead-end path to cooking the perfect tomato sauce: at the time, there was no Google, and my mother’s cookbook shelf only stacked a few old American and British printouts. So I simply set about using “the” Australian sauce recipe, making it many, many times, in different versions.

There was a version of the sauce that stuck around for a while, packed with way too much heat thanks to my generous amounts of garlic, ginger, and Pakistani chili powder. It was a hit, but unfortunately, it also used cold-stored tomatoes that cost their weight in gold due to a shortage in Pakistan in the late 1990s. Now that I’m based in Washington, DC, I’ve moved on to a sauce that embraces what would be considered more “traditional” — the flavors I’ve tasted all over Italy. Hello, Calabrian chili flakes. Hello, San Marzano tomatoes. Hello, basil.

Because even though tomatoes may be hard to come by, it’s always worth making homemade tomato sauce. “I’ll never use jarred sauce in my house, because to me it doesn’t taste delicious,” says Matt Adler, the chef behind DC’s red sauce restaurant Caruso’s Grocery.[Jarred sauce] “It tastes like old onions, old garlic and old basil. And I can never get away from those flavors.”

A good homemade tomato sauce focuses on brightness, a mild acidity rounded out by tomato sweetness, and ideally not overpowered by onions or too much dried oregano. A good sauce, experts say, ultimately comes down to good tomatoes. really good tomatoesgood olive oil and a few simple ingredients. Because despite the belief that any legitimate sauce has to simmer for hours (and honestly, who has time for that?), professionals say that’s not necessarily the case.

“For me, there are three different types of tomato sauce,” Adler says. “There’s pomodoro sauce, which is cooked quickly with really good quality fresh tomatoes, or canned tomatoes cooked in extra virgin olive oil with garlic, basil and a little bit of salt. It’s very quick. Then there’s Italian-American marinara sauce which is cooked for probably two to two and a half hours with onions, dried herbs and fresh herbs.”

The third type is the classic Sunday ragu, which has become a default reference for “tomato sauce.” “I think a lot of people probably have it in their heads that if they’re going to make sauce at home, they have to make that five- or six-hour Sunday ragu,” Adler says. But all the pros have a sub-five-minute version.

Of course, it all starts with the tomato. “You can get good fresh tomatoes in the States if it’s summer,” says chef Anthony Mangieri of Una Pizza Napoletana in New York. “If you can’t, buy a DOP San Marzano,” or look for canned California tomatoes like Bianco Dinapoli or Stanislaus. “For me, I drain all the liquid off of the tomatoes and then drain them off.” [from the can]“I never use it for cooking – everyone I buy it from laughs at me for draining all the produce,” says Mangieri. He suggests a fairly simple recipe of warming garlic in olive oil before adding pepperoncini, dried oregano, fresh basil and crushed tomatoes. Once it’s boiling, remove from heat and you’re done, finishing with sea salt.

Adler has a similar process: “It has to be even quicker when you’re making a fresh tomato sauce – like five minutes.” She simply toasts garlic, basil and “good quality classic” chilli flakes in olive oil before adding chopped pomodoros (no need to peel them, ever), “a splash of white wine, maybe a little sugar if needed, salt and cooks it for a few minutes before adding a tablespoon of butter and the pasta.”

If that still seems like too much work, follow the lead of Soung Wiser of Little Grand in DC. “When you’re in season, literally all you need is tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil,” Soung says. “One of my favorite things to do is not even cook any of it, just let the tomatoes fall apart with salt and olive oil. Ultimately, it’s just the ingredients — it’s about having good tomatoes and good olive oil.”

I now have the privilege of being picky about my tomatoes. On a recent online search about Pakistan’s agrarian journey, I came across a document From the 1990s, co-written by the United States Agency for International Development and the Pakistani government about potential foreign investment in Pakistani tomatoes. Back then, Pakistan’s poor global image and strained ties with the United States meant that no major investors were interested. But since my tomato sauce odyssey began with the most expensive and hideous chilled tomatoes, the idea that Pakistani farmers were once on the cusp of becoming major tomato exporters was hard for me to fathom.

All of this has made me more respectful of the fruit. I now find it therapeutic to watch olive oil-slathered tomatoes slowly wither in a low-temperature oven – the product of my own labor, not from a jar.

Halima Mansoor is a breaking news editor who sees the kitchen as a revolutionary space. As well as documenting food, she is on a mission to trace her culinary heritage, explore immigrant cuisine and initiate more people into the Marmite club.
Lily Fossett is a freelance illustrator based in Bath, UK. She is passionate about portraying narrative in her illustrations and uses digital media to explore colour and texture.