My lovely wife made a batch of marinara, just whipped it up off-hand using Roma’s from our garden, onions, red bell peppers, garlic, basil. It came out waay too sweet, just not our kind of Italian. I’m thinking the red bell peppers were the problem, red bells are pretty sweet, no?
Anyway, she made a boatload of the stuff, and its just too sweet to use with pasta or much else. Any ideas for fixing it up? I’m thinking add red wine and black pepper, and cook it for a while to mellow it. Maybe some oregano. Any other suggestions?
I suggest you experiment on a little first. A dash of hot red pepper can counter some of the sweetness. You obviously can’t keep adding pepper. Being a marinara I don’t know if you want to consider some Parmesan or Romano cheese, but it may help. You can only add so much vinegar to counter the sweetness too.
You’re doing the right thing, but add the red wine about a tablespoon at a time, as it is a very powerful taste in marinara. May I ask, did you add any sugar? I’ve been making my own marinara from romas lately and I wouldn’t call any of my batches too sweet, even after adding a little sugar to some of them.
Take a small amount (anywhere from a spoonfull to a couple tablespoons) and add whatever you’re thinking about adding - red wine, vinegar, salt, or any of the other suggestions here. Taste it. If you like it, add whatever it was to the main batch.
We do that all the time when adjusting for salt/sweet/acid. Easy and you don’t have to screw up the whole batch just to try it out.
From your ingredients I’m not seeming how it got sweet. Peppers aren’t *that *sweet. Given it’s sweet you need to give it away. Once the sugar level is that high any fixes will be unsatisfactory.
