Let me start with saying I knew nothing about tomatoes until we grew our own. The tomatoes you buy in a grocery store don’t even come close to doing this fruit justice. Yes, it’s a fruit. That was the first thing I learned. Next. STOP storing them in the fridge! If you get a tomato from your garden or the local farmers market store them at room temperature. Refrigerating the tomato can actually harm the flavor! Not only that, but once they have been refrigerated the flavor is permanently damaged. So even if their color improves it does not mean their flavor is improving. Another trick, store them stem side down to slow any squishing, rotting, or soft spots.
Here’s the real kicker, stop buying beef steak tomatoes! These are the large softball sized tomatoes you see on all the grocery store shelves. This is possibly the least flavorful tomato. For the best flavor go with an heirloom variety and if you’re not growing them yourself get them from a local farmers market.
My next tip about tomatoes is when it comes to making an amazing tomato sauce stop skinning and seeding your tomatoes. The skin and the seed are where the bulk of the flavor are.
For the easiest and tastiest pasta sauce simply line a baking sheet with foil. Then quarter your tomatoes (I love Mortgage Lifters and Cherokee Purples) and orange them on the foil, add a onion cut into large chunks, an entire head of garlic peeled but the cloves left whole, some basil and oregano, then drizzle with EVO and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Then roast in an oven set to 275ºF for anywhere from 4-6 hours. I check mine every hour. Once you see some good caramelization pull it from the oven and process in the food processor or blender. Put everything on the trays in the appliance. Once it’s blitzed up to the consistency you like all you have to do is heat it up and serve! If you want you can either can it or freeze it for future use.
Trust me if you follow these tips you’ll never look at tomatoes the same again!
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