Around here pizza is a comfort food favorite, so we use a lot of marinara sauce and have tried many different recipes. This no-cook marinara is a winner. As good tasting and easy-to-make as this recipe is, you’ll no longer have an excuse for buying the pre-made stuff again.
What kicks the flavor up a notch is using a can of whole peeled tomatoes instead of tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes. However, if that’s all you have on hand by all means substitute. Canned whole peeled tomatoes have a minimum amount of processing and have better flavor than the alternatives. To kick it up yet another notch, splurge and use Cento or another brand of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes.
Use an immersion blender to purée the tomatoes and make sure to taste what you have to determine what spices were added during the canning process. You may want to adjust the amount of spices you add to dial in that perfect flavor. No immersion blender? A blender or food processor work too, or just use tomato sauce instead.
Don’t mix the sauce so much that you incorporate air into it (see the bubbles in the picture above?).
Be sure to mix up this sauce an hour before using it so the dried herbs have a chance to soak in the tomato juices. This recipe is a modified version of the sauce for a St. Louis-style pizza from by Cook’s Country. When making pizza at my mom’s one day I compared this sauce with some store-bought sauce she had in the fridge. The store-bought sauce had more of a garlic and onion flavor so I added garlic and onion powder to the recipe for a similar flavor profile.
This recipe makes about 4 cups so unless you’re cooking for an army, you’ll be saving some leftover sauce either in the refrigerator or the freezer. It works with all sorts of pasta.
Easy Peasy No-Cook Marinara Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 28-oz can whole peeled tomato
- 1 6-oz can tomato paste
- 3 Tbsp dried basil or 7 Tablespoons fresh basil
- 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 Tbsp dried oregano
- 1 Tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp onion powder
Instructions
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Add the whole peeled tomatoes to at least a 2 quart mixing bowl and purée using an immersion blender.
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Taste what you have so far, as often times there are spices added during the canning process. Use less basil, oregano, garlic powder or onion powder if you're starting off with a strongly spiced product.
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Add the tomato paste, basil, sugar, oregano, garlic powder and onion powder to the bowl and mix using an immersion blender, hand mixer, spoon or spatula.
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Let sit for about an hour to hydrate the dry ingredients.
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Mix again.