How to make your own healthy pasta sauce
Pasta is a family favourite that is easy to make and can be served in various ways. But when it comes to the sauce, store-bought options are usually high in sodium, sugar, and preservatives.
Fortunately, making your own pasta sauce is simple, economical, and so much healthier. In this blog post, I will share a simple and delicious recipe for a healthy pasta sauce with easy-to-find ingredients.
Gather your ingredients
For our healthy pasta sauce recipe, you will need the following ingredients:
- 6 large fresh tomatoes or a can of chopped tomatoes
- 1 chopped onion
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of tomato puree
- 1 handful of basil leaves (chopped or torn)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Making the sauce
Prepare the tomatoes
If you’re using fresh tomatoes, start by boiling a pot of water and blanching them for about 30 seconds to a minute until the skins start to peel off.
Plunge them into a bowl of ice water to stop cooking, then peel off the skins, deseed and season with salt. Chop it into small pieces and set them aside. If you’re using canned tomatoes, skip this step.
Cook the sauce
Heat your olive oil in a medium heat pan, sauté your onions for two minutes or until they become translucent, and garlic is added to the onions directly after for another two minutes.
Next, add your prepared tomatoes, tomato paste, chopped or torn basil leaves, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to simmer. Simmer on low heat for 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Blend the sauce
Once your sauce has simmered to your liking, remove it from the heat. It’s now time to blend it until smooth.
You can do this in the pot using a blender, food processor, or hand blender. Be careful, though, while blending hot foods, and avoid filling the blender jar to the top. You can do it in batches if needed.
Serve your pasta sauce
Your healthy and delicious homemade pasta sauce is now ready. You can store it in a jar in the fridge for up to a week or freeze for longer storage. Serve it on top of your favourite pasta with vegetables, with soups or stews, or as a dipping sauce for bread.
Making easy pasta sauce on Slimming World
If you follow Slimming World, then this recipe is perfect, you can omit the olive oil you prefer or use it as part of your syn allowance.
Each tablespoon of olive oil is usually 6 syns, but check this for yourself to be sure. If you base this recipe on that then the whole recipe is 12 syns, so 3 syns per portion which is still less than most sauce jars you could buy and much tastier!
Enjoying your pasta sauce
Making your pasta sauce at home is a fantastic and easy way to control the ingredients and the quality of the food you and your family consume. It’s also a fun activity to involve your kids and loved ones in.
This healthy pasta sauce recipe is a simple and delicious beginner’s way to start cooking from scratch. So go on, gather the ingredients and get cooking!
This pasta sauce is perfect to use when making your own spaghetti bolognese or to add to lasagne soup instead of a jar of sauce.
