Tomato base for pasta, pizza, bolognaise

 

In my quest to reduce ultra processed foods/ingredients I've started doing more batch cooking. I don't want to have to spend 1+ hrs cooking dinner every night. The meals we eat are now properly home cooked, and these take longer. So I've started batch cooking where I can. Today I cooked up an Italian tomato base which can be used to make tomato pasta - this can be enhanced by adding ingredients like mushrooms, or chopped chilli's for some spice. You can use the base sauce for pizza's like my 8yo did tonight, or for a bolognaise if you either add mince if you're a meat eater, or in my case, lentils and mushrooms. Either way, it makes a great base either by itself, or to turn into other meals. Here's how I made it.

Ingredients

6 x packs of cherry tomato's, halved
2 x red onions, diced
3 x large cloves garlic, crushed
2 x tsp oregano
1 x chopped bunch fresh basil
4 x tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 x tsp salt
2 x tsp black pepper
Optional - 3 tbsp tomato puree

Method

1. Dice the onions and crush the garlic, add to a very deep saucepan with about 4 tbsp olive oil
2. Once browned, add the halved tomato's, salt and pepper
3. Stir regularly and simmer for about 30-40 mins, adding the herbs about half way through - for a richer flavour you can add the tomato puree here too
4. If you prefer your tomato base chunky, simply leave it to cool and portion it off for freezing, or you can use a stick blender to make it smooth, or pour it through a sieve to remove all the tomato skins.

My batch made 5 portions of tomato base, making it around £1.90 per tub. There's only 4 in the photo, one remained in the pot for dinner that night.