Marinara sauce from scratch

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Christina1979

Assistant Cook
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
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19
Location
Georgia
Next week i'm planning on making marinara sauce from scratch using fresh tomatoes, this will be my first attempt. Does anyone have a favorite recipe or any advice on making it. Should I use dried or fresh herbs? Any advice is appreciated.
 
Fresh herbs are almost always best! Fresh tomatoes demand fresh herbs. But, sometimes dried is all there is :(
 
i also get my onion and garlic nicely browned then add all tomatoe products and herbs and cook down
 
I forgot to mention that allrecipe.com, (I have program on cell), has some good marinara recipes.
 
I looked on that website but nothing stood out. Mainly because most of them used canned tomatoes. I found a recipe that i'm thinking of trying. It has tomatoes, onions, garlic, red wine, fresh herbs...sounds delicious! It also explains how to peel the tomatoes. It includes pictures, which I love!
 
Roasting fresh tomatoes makes for wonderful sauce.

There are some great ideas and recipes here!
 
Dawgluver said:
Roasting fresh tomatoes makes for wonderful sauce.

There are some great ideas and recipes here!

I've made a soup from roasted tomatoes and it was fantastic! I was considering roasting them also. I wanted an authentic recipe. I'll probably try it both ways.
 
Christina1979 said:
I've made a soup from roasted tomatoes and it was fantastic! I was considering roasting them also. I wanted an authentic recipe. I'll probably try it both ways.

I grew a plethora of lousy tomatoes this year, and after inquiring about what to do with them, am thinking Kadesma or Babe or Katie came to my aid with a wonderful roasted tomato recipe, along with many other good folk. I used rosemary, salt and pepper, garlic, and thyme, and they were outstanding!

Check out Roasted tomato recipes here on DC.
 
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Dried herbs are often preferred . Only use fresh at the end of cooking; dried toward the start.

And good quality canned tomatoes are often better for sauce than fresh tomatoes.
 
jennyema said:
Dried herbs are often preferred . Only use fresh at the end of cooking; dried toward the start.

And good quality canned tomatoes are often better for sauce than fresh tomatoes.

Are you saying, basil for instance, use dried at beginning of sauce and fresh toward end of cooking?
 
Dried herbs are often preferred . Only use fresh at the end of cooking; dried toward the start.

And good quality canned tomatoes are often better for sauce than fresh tomatoes.

Basically what I came in to say

Are you saying, basil for instance, use dried at beginning of sauce and fresh toward end of cooking?

That is the idea, and a general rule of thumb. Dried in the beginning, always finish with fresh. And salt in the finish too, reduction will intensify all your flavors, including salt, so leave that for near last.

Also, on the canned tomato part, canned San Marzano tomatoes are all you need to look for. You can certainly use fresh, but you have to hull, score, blanch, peel, mash. . .it is just a silly amount of work considering the quality of good canned tomatoes out there.
 
TATTRAT said:
Basically what I came in to say

That is the idea, and a general rule of thumb. Dried in the beginning, always finish with fresh. And salt in the finish too, reduction will intensify all your flavors, including salt, so leave that for near last.

Also, on the canned tomato part, canned San Marzano tomatoes are all you need to look for. You can certainly use fresh, but you have to hull, score, blanch, peel, mash. . .it is just a silly amount of work considering the quality of good canned tomatoes out there.

Yes I knew about when to use fresh or dried herbs. I like the flavor of fresh herbs so that's probably what I'll use.

As for the amount of work, I don't mind. I want to make it using fresh tomatoes for the experience. Afterwards, i'll probably use canned to save time. I just started cooking again and i'm trying new recipes that used to intimidate me. It's fun for me and makes me happy to say that I made it from scratch.
 
Yes I knew about when to use fresh or dried herbs. I like the flavor of fresh herbs so that's probably what I'll use.

As for the amount of work, I don't mind. I want to make it using fresh tomatoes for the experience. Afterwards, i'll probably use canned to save time. I just started cooking again and i'm trying new recipes that used to intimidate me. It's fun for me and makes me happy to say that I made it from scratch.

I too think it would be fun making the sauce from scratch.
 
I'm with those who recommend roasting the tomatoes. I recently made a chili where I roasted 1/2 the tomatoes and used a jar of home-canned tomatoes. The ones I roasted were Romas, the canned were Brandywines. I drained the juice from the canned ones. I plucked the skins from the roasted ones, tossed them in the FP with roasted garlic, and added the two batches of tomatoes to the chili. The roasted tomato sauce was similar to tomato paste--it also had a very intense tomato taste. I have more roasted tomato sauce (just EVOO, S&P) in the freezer. Even though I am not fond of spaghetti, I do like other dishes (lasagne, etc) and will probably use the tomato sauce for one of those as winter approaches. I always add the fresh herbs at the end.
 
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CWS4322 said:
I'm with those who recommend roasting the tomatoes. I recently made a chili where I roasted 1/2 the tomatoes and used a jar of home-canned tomatoes. The ones I roasted were Romas, the canned were Brandywines. I drained the juice from the canned ones. I plucked the skins from the roasted ones, tossed them in the FP with roasted garlic, and added the two batches of tomatoes to the chili. The roasted tomato sauce was similar to tomato paste--it also had a very intense tomato taste. I have more roasted tomato sauce (just EVOO, S&P) in the freezer. Even though I am not fond of spaghetti, I do like other dishes (lasagne, etc) and will probably use the tomato sauce for one of those as winter approaches. I always add the fresh herbs at the end.

How long did you roast them for?
 
When I make a simple marinara sauce, the only seasonings I use are onion, sautéd until soft but not browned, and salt and pepper. You'd be surprised how fresh your sauce tastes without all that added herbs to confuse your taste buds.
 
Fresh basil
fresh oregano
fresh parsley
Fresh garlic
fresh onion

PLUS dry oregano (dry oregano is the only herb in my opinion that adds a nice concentrated flavor. All other dried herbs have a very week herb flavor and not worth the money. IMHO)

I use BOTH fresh and dry oregano in my sauces.
 

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