Sauces
The Sunday Sauce
Four hours of doing almost nothing, and then sauce in the freezer for two months. Worth every minute.
Prep
30 min
Cook
3 hr
Serves
Makes about 6 jars
Level
Involved
Ingredients
4kg — ripe plum tomatoes (San Marzano if you can find them)
120ml — olive oil
2 — onions, finely diced
8 — garlic cloves, sliced
1 bunch — basil, stems and all
2 tsp — sugar (only if the tomatoes need it)
salt, more than you think
I make this maybe four times a year, always on a Sunday, always when the tomatoes are cheap and I have nowhere to be. The apartment smells like garlic for two days and I consider that a feature.
It freezes perfectly in jars, which means future me gets weeknight pasta in the time it takes to boil water. This recipe is really a favor to that person.
Method
Score an X in the base of each tomato, drop them into boiling water for a minute, then into ice water. The skins will slip off in your hands.
Crush the peeled tomatoes with your hands over a bowl. This is the good part. Do not use a blender — you want texture, not smoothie.
Warm the olive oil in your largest pot and cook the onions gently for 15 minutes until sweet and translucent. Add the garlic for the last two.
Add the tomatoes and their juice, a big pinch of salt, and the basil stems. Bring to a bare simmer.
Cook uncovered for 3 hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so. It is ready when a spoon dragged through the bottom leaves a trail that holds.
Taste. Add sugar only if it is sharp, then salt until it stops tasting flat. Stir in the torn basil leaves off the heat.
Jar it while hot, or cool completely and freeze in portions.
A note
The stems carry more basil flavor than the leaves. Put them in early, fish them out at the end, and add the leaves last.
Good to know
More About This Recipe
Nutrition
Calories
90 kcal
Protein
2g
Carbs
9g
Fat
6g
Tips & tricks
Do not use a blender on the tomatoes. Crushing them by hand keeps texture that a blender turns to soup.
The basil stems carry more flavor than the leaves — cook the stems in with the sauce and fish them out, then add the torn leaves off the heat at the very end.
Taste before adding sugar. Most good tomatoes don’t need it, and it’s much easier to add a little than to take it back out.
Substitutions
San Marzano tomatoes
Any good tinned plum tomato works in the off-season — fresh, out-of-season tomatoes make a worse sauce than a good tin.
Fresh basil
A tablespoon of dried oregano stirred in at the end, if basil isn't available — different, but not wrong.
Pairs well with
This is genuinely what the sauce is for — see the sandwich recipe.
Storage & leftovers
This is built to keep. Refrigerate in a sealed jar for up to five days, or freeze flat in bags or jars (leave headroom if using glass) for up to three months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat gently on the stove — it splits a little in the microwave.
Questions people ask
Can I can this for the pantry instead of freezing it?
Why crush by hand instead of blending?
My sauce came out thin — what happened?
Postcards from my kitchen
Made this one?
Tell me how it went, or what you did differently. The best changes to these recipes have come from readers.