Ashley’s Favorite Sauces: Fresh Tomato Sauce

This is one for the freshest tomatoes of summer - the tomatoes from your garden, the ones from the farmers market, I used the little ‘flavor bomb’ cherry tomatoes in mine here! The first ones I could get of the season turned into this sauce, tonight. 

It’s also one of the quickest tomato sauces there is.

My Marinara Sauce sits on the stove and simmers a couple hours. That’s part of the reason I make it in big batches and freeze it!

But no, this one you don’t want to cook too long. The tomatoes are only on the heat long enough to ‘burst,’ in culinary terms - long enough to turn ‘sauce-y,’ in regular parlance. If you have your tomatoes cut into bite-size pieces already, it will go together in the time your pasta is cooking.

You will want to use some kind of pasta shape that ‘catches’ the sauce, here. I used Tinkyada’s little shells;  if you don’t have to stick to gluten free pasta, something a little fancier like orecchiette might be fun. 

If you’re lucky enough to have fresh basil? Use it! 

FRESH TOMATO SAUCE

4 cloves of garlic, diced

2 T tomato paste (the Cento brand that comes in the tube is gluten free)

4-5 cups of fresh tomatoes, cut into bite sized pieces

2 T balsamic vinegar

1 t sugar

Several good shakes of dried basil, or fresh chopped basil leaves

Fresh Parmesan, for serving

Coat a skillet with pan spray. I used my largest cast iron skillet.

Add the garlic and heat until simmering. Add the tomato paste, and stir until the tomato paste turns dark red - be careful, you don’t want to burn it! Add your fresh tomatoes. Stir occasionally until tomatoes burst and turn into a sauce, about four to five minutes. 

Add the balsamic vinegar and sugar. Let the sauce simmer another minute or two while you stir that in. Add your basil right at the end, before you toss it with the pasta. (Save some if you’re using fresh.)

This should be enough for 14-16 ounces of pasta. Toss with hot pasta, and serve with fresh Parmesan and some of the fresh basil, if you have it.