Anybody got a vegetarian spaghetti sauce recipe. I'm looking for one. All the ones family and friends have use meat, usually pork. We have lots of Roma tomatoes ready to go.

Thanks!

Pat

Personally I think it's a sin to use garden-fresh ripe tomatoes in a slow-cooking sauce. Canned tomatoes, fine. Fresh tomatoes are amazing just diced and tossed into hot pasta with a little basil or rosemary, garlic and olive oil. Ten minutes, tops. Don't cook it so long the skin wants to come off the tomatoes.

A "pomodoro" is basically a chunky tomato/herb sauce, so you might want to google pomodoro recipe. This one is as simple as it gets:

http://veganmenu.blogspot.com/...doro-bruschetta.html

Another variation is "arrabiata" (angry) or spicy. This is a longer-cooking sauce usually made with canned tomatoes, but a few pinches of red pepper flakes or fresh cayennes could make your basic pomodoro angry!

Thanks, but a worse sin then canning fresh tomatoes is letting them rot. We got more they we can eat and would like to have sauce next May. That was our plan when planted so many. I don't think they will stay fresh that long. A good canning sauce recipe is what we need.

Thanks,

Pat

Hi Pat,
I know what you mean about lots of ripe tomatoes needing attention!
I just saute some minced garlic in olive oil, add peeled, hand crushed tomatoes, sometimes tomato paste if they are exceptionally liquidy ( I don't use romas so I have more juice), dried basil and oregano, salt and pepper to taste and cook a little while.
That's it.
Very simple.
Sorry, don't have proportions...I don't measure anything.
I freeze mine as I do not can.
Judy

I realize you didn't ask for optional things to make with the tomatoes...

How about salza? I make my own all the time.

What about pizza sauce? I make my own that too.

Here's a recipe for "raw" marinara:
Cherry Tomato Marinara
• 2-½ c. halved cherry tomatoes
• ½ c. sun dried tomatoes, soaked
• 2 T. olive oil
• 1 large clove of garlic minced
• 2 t. dried oregano
• 2 t. dried basil
• 2 t. agave
• 1 t. Himalayan crystal salt

I always add the soaked dried tomatoes, it thickens it and adds lots of flavor.

For-that-matter, you could dry the tomatos...yes?

Here's another one:
John's Living Angel Hair Pasta
Ingredients:
3 zucchini (green, yellow, sunburst or ???)
16 oz cherry tomatoes (very flavorful) or 1 lb. reg tomatoes)
1/2 small white onion
a few fresh basil leaves
1 or 2 cloves of garlic
1 red, orange or yellow bell pepper (not green)
2 tsp. "pizza seasoning" - dried (Italian spices)
dulse flakes to taste
2 tablespoons of chia seeds (optional)
A little Olive Oil (optional)
Most recipes that make a "marinara sauce" always used sun dried tomatoes. Since I strive to eat minimally processed foods, and less dried (concentrated foods) I came up with this alternative recipe to the "conventional" marinara sauces that used dried tomatoes as a thickener. In my recipe, the chia seeds will help to thicken the sauce.
Directions:
1. Use a Spiral Slicer (Saladacco) to turn the zucchini into angel hair pasta.
2. Place all items (except for chia seeds) in a food processor or blender, and PULSE CHOP to a "chunky" consistency.. I don't recommend pureeing the mixture.
3. Pour sauce into a bowl and add chia seeds, stirring them to the sauce. Allow to "set" for 30 minutes to allow sauce to thicken.
4. Pour Sauce over pasta and enjoy


Red

One batch of Spaghetti sauce I made ended up in the freezer, I ran out of tomato paste. Thought I would add that when actually using the sauce. It worked great! Used some last night and it actually tasted fresher that what I canned.

For a 5 qt dutch oven of strained tomatoes (about 1 1/2 inches from top of pan) add 2-3 T. basil, 2 T. garlic, 2 T. Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. This amt of tomatoes will need 3 - 12oz cans paste. You can add 3-4 T of sugar if you want a sweeter taste. Simmer til it's bubbly.

I never add meat until I go to use the sauce, or it can be used as it is. I also use it for pizza sauce, meatloaf, veg soup.

I am with you, Mumsey in that I can my tomatoes without meat. However, if you ever can meat, pouring in some tomatoe juice really adds to the flavor. Great to have on hand to make a quick supper. Mrs.K

Wow, it really does sound pretty simple. It seems we just need to make sure we have enough herbs, garlic and onions. Thanks for all the great recipes. We have enough tomatoes I might people to try them all :-)!

I REALLY wanted to avoid canning my nice fresh tomatoes too... so I dried them instead. I figured, tomato sauce is CHEAP to buy - even the organic stuff isn't that much. But sundried tomatoes... THOSE are pricey. So much so that I don't use them hardly at all. UNTIL NOW. I have tomatoes (especially romas) coming out my EARS, and what I can't use fresh, I've dried. They shrink SOO much when dried that probably 10 or 12 tomatoes only makes a snack-size baggie of sundried... but I'd still rather do that than can them. The dried tomatoes are SOOOOOO incredibly flavorful - and I found that even the "mealy" tomatoes I had early in the season taste awesome when dried.

I think I'm going to try roasting and canning a FEW of them - as well as some tomatillos. After seeing another post on roasted tomatoes & tomatillos... they look SO yummy. Can't believe the flavor difference between a fresh tomatillo and a roasted one! WOW!

But yeah... back to the spaghetti sauce... I'm a vegetarian and I always make my own sauce using plain tomato sauce (canned, from the store), fresh mushrooms, fresh onion and garlic and as many fresh herbs as I can cram into it. I usually add a couple TBSP of sugar too - although if using your own canned sauce you might not have to.

A vegetarian sneaky tip... if you have dinner guests... throw some Morningstar Farms "crumblers" into it. It looks & tastes just like hamburger. They'll never know the difference!

This is a recipe I got recently form an Italian friend:

Make a simple tomato puree by stewing cut up fresh tomatoes in a pot (no water added) for 45 min.
Strain the tomatoes and set aside.
Heat some olive oil in a skillet.
Add 1 chopped onion, garlic, 2 chopped carrots and 2 chopped celery stalks.
Sautee for 15 min. Add some salt.
Add the tomato puree, 1 tsp oregano and a pinch of cinnamon. Some fresh shredded basil would be good too.
Simmer until it reaches desired consistency.

You may add any type of ground meat to this sauce at any time as long as you cook it before you add it.
To me this sauce tastes really good meatless, but it's nice to know that the option is yours.

I plant paste tomatoes especially to use in sauces. The sauce tastes so much better made with fresh tomatoes than canned, at least to us. And because they have less juice than slicing tomatoes, the sauce takes less time to cook down. I never peel them.

wow octave, i never thot to put carrot celery or CINNAMON in my spagetti sauce, sounds great!

Ugh - Cinnamon. Definitely an "acquired" taste in pasta sauce, & one that I'll NEVER acquire - lol!!

In fact, we had an absolutely fabulous little Italian restaurant near us back in NY, & all of sudden they started added cinnamon to their pasta sauces. Absolutely turned my stomach. Luckily they didn't add it to their pizza sauce, but from then on I was unable to ever order pasta there. I found the sauce inedible due to the cinnamon.

Definitely do a taste test of pasta sauce with cinnamon before you freeze or can up a lot of it.

OregonRed, Italians call the combination of onion, carrots and celery "The Holy Trinity". There is something about them together that is magic!

As for the cinnamon; do a preview taste test and tell us what you think.

The roasted tomato sauce is very good.

I second drying as a great method of preserving some of your bounty...the finished product takes up so little space and gives such a "big" taste!

Peace

Gail

quote:

Originally posted by pasqualerose: A good canning sauce recipe is what we need.

I plant extra paste tomatoes because I greatly prefer home-canned tomato sauce to anything I can get from the store. (Ugh, just thinking about it.) I follow the directions in the Ball Blue Book of canning. The simplest is to just make tomato sauce: take the stems off (removing skins at this point is optional), quarter tomatoes, cook 20 mins, then process in food processor, then run through food mill to remove seeds and skins. Cook down until it reaches the thickness you prefer. I usually end up cooking down for a minimum of 6 - 8 hours, so a weekend "chore day" is the perfect time to do it. Then fill prepared jars with hot tomato sauce, adding 1 Tbsp commercially prepared lemon juice per pint or 2 Tbsps per quart, and process in a hot water bath according to their suggested times for your altitude (I think it's about 30 minutes).

You can season the sauce as you use it. I made some yellow tomato sauce last weekend out of 4 varieties of yellow tomatoes (2 pastes, 2 slicers). There was a little extra, so I refrigerated it and just had some for supper tonight. It was delicious! I cooked some pasta, then sprinkled sea salt, pepper, and chopped fresh basil on it. Then some chunks of fresh mozzarella. Then the heated sauce, and topped the whole thing with shredded asiago cheese. You could saute veggies or whatever you like in with the sauce. (Omnivores consider adding sliced smoked brats or meatballs when you reheat the sauce.)

It was delicious! Tell me you can replace that with Ragu and not know the difference... Really...

By the way, I use the frozen prepared lemon juice (find it near orange juice concentrate at the store) rather than the stuff off the shelf in a bottle. Frozen does not contain the artifical preservatives you will find in the bottled lemon juice if you read the ingredient list.