Looking for a decent fresh tomato lasagna sauce receipe. Tips and tricks are good too. Heck, throw in the full lasagna recipe if you have a favorite one. My wife is really trying to do lasagna but first efforts were cough cough awful cough cough and if I can get a good recipe she might be open to suggestion…
Sautee skinned italian sausage (pulled into very small peices) with onion and red bell peper, chopped.
Use crushed tomato and tomato sauce. I add a small can of crushed pineapple (crushed pineapple makes ANY tomato-based food taste better and you don’t ever taste the pineapple–unless you go overboard).
If you’re making enough to serve 8 people or more, you can also add a tablespoon of brown sugar to add complexity (another of those flavors that they love but cannot identify, thereby ensuring your recipe remains a secret (until you post it on a message board, that is).
I do all of the above as well as adding this and it really makes a fantastic sauce that can be used in Spaghetti, Lasagna or any comparable dish. The final flavor of the sauce is velvety and slightly spicy with a hint of sweetness for complexity.
I swear by this recipe
I’m assuming that you can’t follow the recipe on the back of the Barilla Lasagna Noodle box from your current location? Cause that’s what I do most of the time and it comes out great.
Quick sauce -
saute 1/2 an onion, chopped small, in 2 TBSP oilive oil until they look clear, add 2 or 3 cloves of finely diced garlic and saute till just slightly browned (warning, very easy to burn).
Add one large can crushed tomatoes and a couple tablespoons of tamato paste.
Add a few pinches dried oregano and basil.
If you want, add 1/ lb browned ground beef.
Simmer uncovered 20 minutes. Done! (note, will have a more sharp, acid taste than jarred sauce due to the brief cooking. Meat definitely “softens” the flavor.)
Mine is simply brown hamburger and add in a little minced garlic and diced onion. Once all is cooked and the onions clear drain the meat, add in a small can of tomato sauce and a large can of tomatoes and a tablespoon of Italian seasoning (I make my own off of one of the recipes from allrecipes.com because Mom is allergic to sage and savory and I find it tastes better than anything store bought). Simmer fifteen minutes or so.
The rest of it is just the noodles, four cheese Italian blend (much better than just mozza, just use whatever shredded Italian cheese blend is in your local store) and a filling of cottage (medium tub) or ricotta cheese mixed with an egg and 1/4 cup of parmesan.
Layered up the following way: sauce, noodles, filling, sauce, cheese, noodles, filling, sauce, cheese.
Baked at 425 for 45 minutes and let rest for ten (enough time to do up the garlic bread and salad) then serve.
If you go with the cooked noodles instead of the no-cook, start the water before you start the sauce.
Sorry for mostly approximates, my recipe is at home and I’m an hour and change drive away.
My favorite tomato sauce recipe comes from Alton Brown’s Good Eats. It’s a bit complicated, but very, very good.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pantry-friendly-tomato-sauce-recipe/index.html
If you want to read the transcript of the episode (there’s lots of unnecessary info for the sauce (e.g. the hows and whys of knife sharpening), but sometimes he explains how to do things or the WHY of something, which can help), go here: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/Season2/Tomato/TomatoTranscript.htm
I love improvising fresh tomato sauce. I make it different every time and have yet to end up with a “bad” one.
Some tips that make it good:
-Red wine (a little goes a long way, and make sure to boil it)
-Roma tomatoes (I haven’t tried beefsteak or any other variety but my wife is certain they’d be too watery)
-It’s really hard to overseason it. Oregano, sweet basil, and black pepper are musts IMO but you will find other things in your cabinet that just seem to make sense in it too
-Put it in a blender for consistency
-Simmer/cook for as long as possible. In the likely event that it’s too watery, keep simmering and stirring. In the unlikely event that it’s too thick, add water and a little extra salt
-Lots of garlic
-People say this in a lot of cases in which it really isn’t true, but in the case of fresh homemade tomato sauce, it really is better the next day, so make it the day before you want to eat it
-It’s not going to be fire-engine red - it’s actually much closer to orange - so if you’re trying to impress guests, you might want to think about using some food coloring
What do you mean by “fresh tomato” sauce? I would generally think of an uncooked or very lightly cooked tomato sauce when I hear that phrase. Or is it supposed to be vegetarian? Or do you want a full-blown meat sauce with tomato?
For the last, this is what I make for the red layer in lasagna. Here is the full lasagna recipe. It is the only lasagna I make anymore. Absolutely perfect, and the northern-style bechamel white layer (rather than ricotta or other cheese) I prefer.
My personal tomato sauce philosophy is that it is indeed easy to overseason tomato sauce. If you start with high quality canned tomatoes (or fresh ones picked at their peak ripeness), you don’t need to add much in the way of (fresh) basil or (usually dried) oregano. I usually don’t even pepper mine, unless it’s a meat sauce.
Hmm…if your sauce isn’t red, then either you’re using tomatoes that aren’t red, or you’re beating a bunch of air into the sauce (which I see, you blend your sauce, so that may be the issue.) The sauce should look pretty much as red as the tomatoes you started with. Also, another quick fix for watery sauce, and one that may also help deepen the color if you’re having problems, is the addition of a teaspoon or so of tomato paste.
What kind of tomatoes are you using? Romas, at least, have a red skin but orangish/very light red flesh and juice, and if you choose to leave them in, lightlu-colored seeds.
I generally use Romas. Either canned San Marzanos, or absolutely peak-of-freshness Romas from the garden. Neither make a particularly orange sauce in my experience. If the tomato is picked early, then, yes, the sauce can look pale and pink. Also, it’s possible our definitions of orange and red are different. The red I’m speaking of is the red of the sauce on the right.
I generally use Romas. Either canned San Marzanos, or absolutely peak-of-freshness Romas from the garden. I skin and seed my tomatoes. Neither make a particularly orange sauce in my experience. If the tomato is picked early, then, yes, the sauce can look pale and pink. Also, it’s possible our definitions of orange and red are different. The red I’m speaking of is the red of the sauce on the right.