Lately I’ve been getting really picky about chemical additives in food. Artificial colours, flavours and preservatives (to name just a few!) can do horrible things to our bodies. For one example, I know mums with children who were displaying ADHD type behaviour, who saw a massive turnaround when they eliminated these additives from their children’s diet. I think we’re all much better off without them. But unfortunately, they are in so many food products!
Lately, I’ve been trying to avoid over-processed food and get my family eating real food. As part of my new habit of scrutinizing all ingredients labels, I realized that our good old tomato sauce contained the all-so-common ambiguous term “flavours” – which could mean almost anything. So I decided to start making our own.
This recipe is VERY flexible – experiment as much as you like! While we enjoy this recipe “as is” there is plenty of room to experiment with different herbs and spices. For example, it could easily be turned into a Mexican salsa with the addition of ground coriander and cumin and some diced capsicum. We leave it in its chunky, salsa form, but you could mash or blend it if you like, to create a smoother texture. If blending, you may want to add some corn flour or chia seeds to thicken it, or simmer it for longer to cook off more of the liquid. See how it turns out.
We use this hot or cold, for just about anything you would use regular “dead ‘orse” for and more – in sandwiches, on snags, on pies, chips, nachos, baked potatoes, the list goes on! We keep ours in the fridge for up to a week with no problems (apart from it running out!) but if in doubt, you could freeze it in ice cube trays for easy to defrost portions, especially if you cook up a big (double or triple) batch to last you a while.
Homemade All-Natural Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- Olive or coconut oil
- 1 small brown onion finely diced
- 1-2 cloves garlic diced or crushed
- 1 400 g can diced tomato
- 1-2 tbs tomato paste
- 1 tsp sweet paprika
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- Optional: mixed herbs ground coriander or ground cumin to taste
- Generous grinding of black pepper and pink Himalayan rock salt or other good, natural salt
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic in a generous dash of oil until the onion is translucent.
- Add the remaining ingredients. Bring to the boil and gently simmer for 15(ish) minutes.
- Mash or blend if desired, or leave it as is.
- Enjoy!
Originally posted 2015-08-10 12:00:36.