Tasty Tuesday- Tomato Sauce

I will fully admit I used to buy jarred sauce. Frankly that wasn't even that long ago. THEN a friend introduced me to the Marcella Hazan Tomato Sauce recipe and I have yet to buy another jar since then. The first time I made my sauce I made the recipe exactly as written and it was good BUT that wasn't going to work for me. Almost a whole freakin stick of butter?! Insane. I have to say I have now perfected this recipe and I make mass amounts of it every month. The only craving I have had in this pregnancy is tomato sauce, so we go through a ton of it!

Ingredients:

4 28 oz can of whole or diced tomatoes (I love Muir Glen)

2 tablespoons butter

2 onions, halved

1 small can tomato paste

garlic and salt to taste

 If you like chunky sauce I suggest hand crushing or chopping the whole tomatoes before you toss everything in the crock pot. Hubby likes no chunks so I just throw them in whole and take care of it later.

 My crock pot which I believe if pretty standard size, hold 4 cans of tomatoes but of course if yours is a bit smaller alter as necessary. I set the crock pot to 6 hours on high but don't actually cook it for the whole time (at least not most of the time!).

 Next up is your butter and salt and if you like garlic (who doesn't??) add that too. At this point I usually add one small can of tomato paste to help thicken the sauce just a bit.

 Set it and forget it!! That's an infomercial for something right?

Here's my all important step. Once your sauce is simmering away for a few hours and smells ridiculously good you can do anything you want. Like I said we like the sauce a bit smoother, basically like marinara so I take out the emulsion blender and go to town. The emulsion blender is a new purchase so I was previously letting my sauce cool in the fridge overnight and then dumping it into the food processor- same result, bigger mess. 

Now you have a ton of sauce. We use it for EVERYTHING. Over the weekend I made 8 cans of tomatoes! Usually once the sauce is cool I pour it onto freezer bags and toss them in the freezer for meals for the next few weeks. We use this sauce for lasagna, spaghetti (just cook a few meatballs with it, delish!), spooned over fresh raviolis, chicken cacciatore, pizza sauce... just spoon it into my mouth. Yup everything. 

You now have a fantastic basic sauce. Depending on what you are making feel free to add a few extra ingredients (red pepper! basil!) but I promise you this is absolutely delicious as is!