Tomato
sauce on bow tie pasta with garlic bread
Here's a simple tomato sauce that anyone can make quickly with a
few ingredients from their pantry. This base sauce can be used as the
foundation to any tomato sauce for spaghetti, any pasta dish and great as a
layer between lasagna. Be creative by adding veggies, meat balls or ground meat
in the sauce.
Ingredients
1 can 28 oz whole peeled plum tomatoes
1 can 14.5 oz diced tomatoes
1 can 6 oz tomato paste (to thicken sauce)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (more or less to sauté onions
and garlic)
1 small sweet onion - finely diced
1 clove garlic, minced
Kosher Salt and Pepper to taste or Mrs. Dash (Salt-Free, regular
or garlic & herb variety)
Fresh mushrooms, sliced in pieces or 1 can 4 oz mushrooms (pieces
and stems)
2 tablespoons Italian Seasoning or a mix of dry: marjoram, basil,
thyme, oregano & rosemary
1 teaspoon of light brown sugar to taste
Pasta and Options
1 box of your favorite dry pasta
1 lb - meatballs or lean ground meat or sausage (optional)
Mix chopped veggies (optional, as desired)
Directions
Prepare all of your ingredients before you turn on the stove.
Cut/chop/dice/slice and open cans, blend them if you wish – then heat up your
pan with oil because when you add the ingredients it goes by quickly.
1. In a frying pan: drizzle enough canola oil to brown chicken,
sprinkle salt and pepper or chicken seasoning on both sides of dry chicken, if
the chicken is wet pat with paper towel to remove excess moisture so the oil
won’t splatter on you – when using chicken with skin and bone – browns easily.
If using boneless/skinless thighs – it will lightly brown.
2. While the chicken is browning, in a separate deep sauce pan
or dutch oven, add extra virgin olive oil to brown the onions for 2-3 minutes
until translucent. Then add the tomato paste and heat for another minute to
bring out the flavor of the paste.
3. Add all of your other ingredients, except the basil and hold
off on the salt and pepper until the end – this is the quick and easy part –
into the sauce pan: garlic, mushrooms, Italian seasoning, can tomatoes, brown
sugar. Stir well, bring to boil.
4. Add the chicken to the sauce and bring to boil, then reduce
to med or low and cover sauce to allow the chicken to complete cooking in the
sauce. Approximately 30-45 minutes. The flavors will marry together. Check the
chicken for doneness by cutting a piece to see if it is cooked completely with
no blood juices inside.
5. You can make your pasta while the sauce is cooking. No need
to worry about the pasta being cold because when you add the hot sauce on the
pasta it warms it up again.
6. Plate it! - Pour a ladle of sauce over the cooked pasta, add
a piece of chicken or you can shred the chicken to go further in serving more
people. Sprinkle the fresh basil pieces over the chicken and sauce; serve with
a salad and garlic bread and enjoy!
Adapted from Lidia’s Italy: Marinara vs
Quick Tomotoe Sauce from her cookbook: Lidia’s Favorite Recipes
If you liked this article click the Subscribe button to receive
email updates when a new article is published. Connect with Monica on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.
©mLehua. All Rights Reserved. No part of this article may be
reproduced without prior permissions from the author. Partial reposting is
permitted with a link back to the original article.
Recipe originally posted here on Orlando Cooking Examiner.
