I seriously don’t think I will ever buy marinara sauce from the store...ever again! This sauce is bursting with fresh, great flavor and home-made goodness, PLUS it’s FUN to make :)
Homemade Marinara Sauce
Ingredients
437 g. Roma tomatoes, whole (I used 7 from my garden, but some of them were pretty small, equivalent to about 4-5 good sized ones from the store)
15 oz. can diced tomatoes
4 oz. can diced green chilies (fire roasted)
Whole head of garlic (don’t worry…you won’t use the whole thing)
½ red onion, chopped into large chunks
Olive oil
1 Tbsp. fresh Italian parsley
½ Tbsp. fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
¼ tsp. sugar
½ c. white wine
Method
Preheat oven to 425⁰F. Drizzle onion with olive oil and place on small pan. Cut off top of garlic and drizzle with olive oil. Either wrap garlic loosely in aluminum foil or place in garlic roaster with a lid. Place garlic and onion in preheated oven at cook for 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
Place Roma tomatoes in medium sauce pot. Add enough water to cover tomatoes and sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Partially cover pot and heat to boiling. Let boil about 5 minutes, then remove from heat. Use a spider spatula to carefully remove tomatoes and transfer to a plate or bowl. Let cool slightly. Pour out HALF of the water from the pot.
Remove skins from tomatoes (they come off easily with a fork) and return them to the pot. Add all remaining ingredients (except only use about 4 large cloves of garlic from the roasted head). Use a hand-held emersion blender to blend all ingredients making sure to break down large vegetable chunks (if you don’t have an emersion blender, just combine all ingredients, including tomatoes and water, into a regular blender or food processor, but make sure mixture is not too hot to avoid an accident).
Stir and bring mixture to a boil over medium heat. Cover with lid and reduce heat. Let simmer about an hour tasting several times and adjusting seasonings as desired. Serve over pasta, use in casseroles, on pizza, a dipping sauce for soft bread sticks, etc.)
(Note: So far, I’ve used this marinara on spaghetti and as a pizza sauce. It’s delicious!! Also, don’t let the small bowl in the photos fool you – I ended up with enough of this amazing sauce to fill 2 medium-sized Ball canning jars. There’s plenty to go around).
