10 tips to make a perfect tomato sauce

The recipe of the recipes, the queen of pasta dishes: the tomato sauce is a classic of our culinary tradition, tasted and loved all over the world! Preparing the tomato sauce at home is very simple but like all traditional recipes it needs to follow precise rules to avoid mistakes. San Marzano tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil and fresh fragrant basil: the tomato sauce is prepared during the summer months just like our grandmothers still do today and, if well preserved, they can be enjoyed and used all year round. Choose the right tomatoes, fasten your aprons and follow our advice!

Choose good tomatoes

For a perfect sauce you need the right tomatoes: San Marzano tomatoes are undoubtedly the best, juicy and tasty at the right point, they must be ripe but firm at the same time. It is important that the tomatoes are fresh, intact, fragrant and that they appear without any dent on the surface: do not worry, the discarded ones can still be used for a fresh tomato salad or to season another dish. As an alternative to San Marzano tomatoes, you can also prepare an excellent sauce with piccadilly tomatoes or datterini tomatoes.

What time of year?

The tradition does not admit mistakes: the tomato sauce is prepared in the period that goes between the end of July and the beginning of August. In this period in fact, despite the summer heat, the tomatoes reach the peak of their ripening cycle and are perfect to be used to prepare the sauce that you will keep throughout the year. Preparing the tomato sauce is also an opportunity to spend the day with your friends and relatives: the more we are, the more sauce we prepare!

Have patience

Preparing the tomato sauce is not difficult but it takes some time and patience: after cleaning the tomatoes, place them in a large pot, cover them with water and let them boil for a few minutes until they are soft. Remove then the skins with a vegetable mill, obtaining only the tomato pulp; at this point if the pulp should be too liquid let it shrink in the pot and cook it over a gentle heat for a few minutes; if instead the pulps is thick at the right point put it in sterilized jars helping yourself with a funnel, add a pinch of salt and some fresh basil leaves, seal the jars tightly and boil them in a large pot covered with 2/3 of water. After 30 minutes, turn off the heat and let the jars cool in the same water.

How to dress tomato sauce

A good tomato sauce is a simple sauce: in each jar a few leaves of fresh basil should be added and nothing more! In this way the tomato sauce will be preserved more easily and for longer without running the risk of souring. A simple sauce is also an easier and more versatile sauce to use for your recipes!

Sterilize the jars well

If you don’t want to run the risk of ruining your tomato sauce for a bad preservation, sterilizing the jars is of fundamental importance: make sure that the jars are intact, without cracks or chippings and that the caps are new and with the seals intact. Wash the jars with cold running water and dry them, place them in a pot with high sides lined with a clean rag with the opening facing upwards. Between a jar and the other place some rags so as not to make them knock each other, fill the pot with cold water and let the jars boil for 30 minutes adding the lids after 20 minutes. After the necessary time, let the jars cool in the same water and drain them upside down on a clean rag.