This homemade tomato sauce is full of nutritious ingredients. It may be vegan but the veggies in it are hearty enough that you won’t even notice! It’s slow simmered to develop a depth of flavor and goes wonderfully with any pasta dish, on top of pizza or even toast!
I love pasta and I have always tried to be more adventurous with my pasta sauces but I always keep coming back to tomato based sauces. Cream and olive oil based sauces are nice but I don’t get the same feeling of satisfaction out of them than when I have mine with tomato.
Maybe it’s because I find tomato sauce to be a lighter healthier fair so it means that I can eat more pasta and heap on more sauce without a second thought 😛
Either way, I love my tomato sauce and the thing that makes it all the better is the fact that tomatoes are actually more nutritious when they are cooked!
I know that there are millions of marinara sauce recipes out there on the interweb but I always go back to this one because it’s the first one that my mother deer ever taught me. Ever since, it’s the only one that I keep going back to because it brings back so many memories.
Here and there I’ll add in things to make it more “my own” but you just can’t beat your mother’s original recipe.
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Homemade pasta sauce recipe
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic (minced)
- 3/4 cup diced onion
- 500g chopped tomatoes (about 5 medium)
- 1/3 cup vegetable stock
- 1 1/2 cups chopped zucchini (1cm cubes)
- 1 cup chopped eggplant (1cm cubes)
- 3/4 cup diced mushrooms
- 2 cups chopped kale or spinach
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
- Heat the olive oil in a pot on medium-high heat. Add in the garlic and onions. Saute until golden brown.
- Reduce to medium heat and add in the vegetable stock and tomatoes. Using a wooden spoon, slightly mash the tomatoes. Bring the sauce up to a simmer.
- Add in the zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, basil, oregano, salt and pepper. Reduce to low heat and let the sauce simmer for 5 minutes or until the veggies are tender.
- Remove from heat and add in the chopped kale or spinach. Stir and allow the greens to cook using the residual heat from the sauce.
- Serve on top of pasta.
Is it weird that I like putting pasta sauce on eggs? I think the flavor it lends is SO good! LOL! Pasta eggs should become a thing!
Totally not! There’s this dish called shashuka and it’s basically poaching your eggs in tomato sauce! It’s SOOO good