Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The best way to thicken marinara sauce for me, without losing any taste is to cook it a little longer. Cooking it longer is just keeping the sauce on simmer, uncovered and stirring it occasionally so its cooking consistently and taking it off the heat when you think it has reached desired thickness.
I agree with the picture - it is difficult to tell if that is just dried sauce crust or mold. Also important to note that the jar was new, so if there is mold, it indicates that the jar was not properly processed, so other bugs (e.g. C. botulinum) might be present even if invisible
If you are using tomato paste, you absolutely have to let it cook for about 3-5 minutes before or for forever after you add the liquid. Tomato paste will, no matter how fresh, have a tinny/metallic taste to it. You have to cook that taste out before you add broth, tomato sauce, or water to it. At least that is what Rachel Ray says.
I've never made sauce specifically for pizza before, but I often make marinara/bolognese sauces for pasta. The base of my sauces (without any extra veggies or meat for the bolognese) is a can of tomatoes, some tomato paste, white wine, onion, garlic, chili pepper, and herbs.
Marinara is primarily tomatoes reduced and flavored with onion and Italian herbs like basil and oregano. Enchilada sauce (which means 'in chili') is primarily pureed, rehydrated, toasted, dried peppers, flavored with a little tomato, onion, and Mexican spices such as cumin.
Marinara sauce is not started with any meat or meat flavoring or onions like a thick tomato sauce for pasta is. Spaghetti sauce starts with sauteing onions and meat such as neck bones, garlic and olive oil in the bottom of a pan before adding the tomato sauce and paste or adding meat balls to flavor the sauce besides the oregano, garlic, basil ...
They were standard garden tomatoes - not Romas or anything you'd traditionally use for sauce, but hey, they're what I had. The sauce has been simmering for a few hours and is reducing nicely. To stir, it has a lovely consistency, but when it sits, water collects at the bottom and the sauce becomes almost mealy until I stir it all up again.
Even if you could take all of the extra crap that is in Prego out it would still be Prego, (any canned or bottled sauce will never equal a freshly homemade marinara sauce). Get a can of quality whole tomatoes (no extra ingredients, I like Cento brand) empty them into a bowl and then crush them to a fine pulp with your hands.
Marinara sauce isn't ideal for pizza for the very reason you describe - it's too watery. Pasta sauces need to be runny enough to coat a great deal of surface area, also pasta will absorb a bit of water from the sauce even when fully cooked.
Usually, fresh basil has to be added to a fresh sauce (means a sauce made by fresh tomatoes, to serve it "today") just at the end of cooking, 3-4 minutes before you turn your fire off. Then let it rest some minutes more, while you cook the pasta. You have to light the fire again at end, because you need a very hot sauce over your very hot pasta.