How to Make Spaghetti Sauce with Garden Fresh Tomatoes and Herbs

Well , look at this big paste tomato .

I just picked a bunch of my paste tomatoes and I finally have enough between these and what I have in the freezer to make spaghetti sauce .

So that's what we're going to do tonight .

I'm gonna use a combination of fresh tomatoes and frozen tomatoes and show you how to make a really easy spaghetti sauce recipe that you can use in all kinds of things .

You can freeze it , you can can it if you want .

So let's go inside and we'll get started .

I'm so excited about the spaghetti sauce .

It's so delicious and my paste tomatoes have been a little late this year , so I can't wait to get my sauce made .

All right .

You guys , this is it .

This is gonna be fun making fresh spaghetti sauce from my home grown tomatoes is most definitely my favorite way to use my tomatoes .

And today I'm using a combination of fresh tomatoes I just picked from the garden and frozen tomatoes that I froze maybe a month or so ago .

I'm gonna show you how to process both into the spaghetti sauce .

There's a few simple ingredients that I use in my spaghetti sauce , olive oil , parsley , salt and pepper , sugar , garden , fresh oregano , garden , fresh parsley , garlic , tomato paste and my secret ingredient zucchini , which my kids don't know about .

So , please don't tell them .

So , let's get started .

We'll come over the sink and take a look at the uh frozen tomatoes and I'll show you how to get the skins off in a really easy way .

Ok , let's go .

Ok .

I've got my frozen tomatoes here in the sink .

They've been thawing out for a couple of hours and it is so easy to get the skins off the frozen tomatoes .

These are kind of halfway thawed and look how easily the skin just peels right off and I'll just throw this skin into my compost pile just comes right off .

So simple , it's almost easier to do it when they're partially frozen .

So for me , I like to have about five ziplock bags full of frozen tomatoes to make my spaghetti sauce .

And then of course , we're adding fresh today .

So just peels right off .

Then I put it into the bowl to let it drain out a little bit more .

So I'm gonna go ahead and des skin these five bags of tomatoes and we'll come back and show you what to do next .

OK .

I'm done peeling all these frozen tomatoes .

And what I forgot to mention earlier is you want to peel them and then put them in a colander in the sink and let them drain that way .

All the excess water , um , all the excess juice , everything will drain out .

We want to get them as drained as possible before we put them into our spaghetti sauce .

So you just want to let them drain in the sink here for a little while .

And then right now , but since I'm doing fresh tomatoes also , I'm gonna move on to the fresh tomatoes and show you how we process these .

These are some pretty good sized Amish paste tomatoes .

Um They're like aroma tomato , they're really nice in sauce .

And I'm gonna show you how to get the skin off really easy .

But before I do that , I'm gonna go ahead and cut the cores out .

OK ?

So let me go and do that and then we'll come back and show you how to get the skins off .

OK ?

Super easy way to peel fresh tomatoes is just dunk them in boiling water for about 30 seconds .

The skins will kind of peel up and you're gonna pull them out or I'll pull them out and put them in his bowl here and you'll see the skins will just like peel right off .

So let them sit for a little bit and come back and show you what they look like .

So it's been about 30 seconds and you can see how the skin is just peeling right off .

So I'm just gonna pull these out and put them in a bowl here , let them cool a little bit and we'll peel the skins right off and we can use them in our spaghetti sauce and look how easily this skin just peels right off after that little dunk in the boiling water just makes it so easy .

Don't need to use a knife or anything .

Just get your hands in there .

There you go and go ahead and peel these and we'll come back with the next step in the recipe .

OK ?

I've got my two different groups of tomatoes here .

This is the , the bowl that was frozen .

A couple different varieties of tomatoes and this is the bowl that was fresh .

They're both peeled , they're ready to go .

You can see in here , I've got some orange tomatoes .

These are my Kellogg's Breakfast tomatoes .

They're nice and sweet and they really add a good flavor to the sauce .

So , what I'm gonna do now is because we do like a thinner sauce .

We don't like a real chunky sauce .

I'm gonna go ahead and puree these in my blender before we cook them in the stock pot .

So I'm gonna go ahead and get them all blended up and just throw them in here and I actually just pulse them a little bit .

Um So there are , you know , a few little chunks , but for the most part , it's pretty well blended up .

So I'll go ahead and get that done and then come back and show you what we do next ?

Yeah .

Ok .

We've got the tomatoes all pureed in the blender .

Now , if you don't mind a chunky sauce , you can skip the blender step altogether and just mash your tomatoes up with a potato masher and a bowl that works just fine too .

So now we're gonna , finally , after we've processed all these tomatoes , we're gonna start cooking our sauce the moment we've been waiting for .

So let's go to the stove and I'll show you what to do next .

My big stock pot here .

I put about a half a cup of olive oil in the bottom .

Got it nice and hot and I've got about maybe five or six cloves of garlic , which I'm gonna get in the pot here and just kind of brown it , this is gonna give the spaghetti sauce some really nice flavor .

We'll do this before we add any of the tomatoes in .

So you're gonna brown this .

Oh , it smells so good .

Getting nice and brown and then I'm gonna get the tomatoes and just start pouring the tomato sauce in .

So grab the tomatoes over here , you start pouring them in .

You have to be careful because it kind of splatters .

So that wasn't pretty , but it got the first batch in there .

So I'm gonna go ahead and get the rest of the tomato sauce in here and I'll come back and show you all the seasonings that we put in .

Ok ?

We got all the tomatoes added to the sauce and my secret ingredient is zucchini .

Now , I love to add zucchini to my spaghetti sauce because not only does it add a lot of flavor , but it's one great way to get zucchini into my kids without them realizing .

So I've got about two cups of zucchini .

It's gonna pour it right in once the sauce gets all mixed up and , and cooked , it's gonna be totally invisible .

Now , you can see this sauce is kind of a light red color and that's because of all the different tomatoes that I add and um , to help it get that nice deep dark red color that I really like .

I am gonna add one can of tomato paste .

Now , it's not really gonna affect the taste too much .

You're still gonna have that great home grown taste that's gonna come through , but not only does it help thicken up the sauce , but it will also help , um , give that deep dark red color to my sauce because I don't take all the seeds out of my tomatoes , this sauce , um , while you're cooking it , it is gonna be quite thin .

Uh , but I just don't like to see it at all and I cook it , you know , I cook it down so that it ends up being a lot thicker in the end .

So we've got the tomato paste in there .

We'll stir that in , then we'll add our seasonings .

It's important while you're making the spaghetti sauce just to know that you're gonna be adding your seasonings to taste .

So , I know the quantities here aren't really exact , but I do make a big huge stock pot full of spaghetti sauce .

Whenever I make my spaghetti sauce , you can certainly make a much smaller quantity if you want .

So , I add , you know , probably more seasonings than what you would add .

But I'm gonna put like a handful of so or so of salt .

It's probably um , maybe a tablespoon , put in some fresh ground pepper .

You spice it up here .

I'm gonna add some parsley and unfortunately , I don't have any parsley for my garden .

So I have to use the dry parsley .

Ok , I do have oregano from my garden .

I'm gonna add a couple of tablespoons of fresh oregano and I've got some fresh basil for my garden .

So I'll add a couple of tablespoons of the fresh basil and you're gonna also want to add a couple of tablespoons of sugar .

The sugar will help counteract that counteract the acid in the tomatoes .

And once again , you'll do this to taste .

So you'll add a little bit of sugar as with all your spices and seasonings and then taste it .

You might have to add a little bit more and we're gonna stir this up , let it simmer for a while and then taste it and see how it's coming along .

So , ok , so my spaghetti sauce has been simmering now for maybe a half hour or so .

And I'm gonna give it a taste test to see what other spices I need to add to it .

Now , as I'm boiling , I'm leaving the lid off because I do want it to reduce down .

As you can see , it's really thin and I'm gonna cook it actually for a couple of hours .

But if I cook it with a lid on , it's gonna get all that condensation , which will add more moisture to my sauce .

So let's give it a taste and see what else I need .

It's pretty good .

But I think I definitely need to add some more garlic .

In fact , I'll probably add more spices all the way around .

And this is why it's so important to add a little bit and then taste it , just add a little bit at a time and then taste it and keep doing that throughout the cooking process because your tastes are going to be different than mine .

We like a lot of garlic , but maybe you don't .

So I just added about three cloves of garlic , three more cloves of garlic .

And it also depends on the quantity that you're making too .

If you're making a smaller quantity , you're obviously gonna need much less spices .

I'm also gonna add some basil .

I did a video earlier on drying basil and this is basil for my garden , but just dried dehydrated dehydrating in the microwave and then put it in the freezer .

So I'm gonna go ahead and rub it between my hands to make it a little bit finer to add to my sauce and add some of it .

I'm also gonna add a little bit more oregano .

Now , I don't have any fresh oregano left .

But again , this is um oregano that is dehydrated from my garden .

Just gonna add it right in there and maybe even a little more salt and pepper .

Ok ?

Just adding it again a little bit at a time and then we're gonna come back and taste it after it's had a chance to simmer and get all those flavors infuse throughout the sauce .

Well , the sauce has been simmering for about three hours now .

It's starting to look really good .

Starting to thicken up a little bit and I've actually added some more seasonings .

I added some more basil , some more oregano and probably about 1/4 of a cup of sugar .

And now I'm gonna taste it and we'll see if it's ready to eat and you can see how the level in the pot has actually gone down a little bit .

That means it is thickening up .

You can actually cook this all day if you want , but I'm going to taste it and see if it's ready to eat now .

Oh , it smells so , so good .

Has a nice , beautiful red color .

Lots of nice looking seasonings and spices in there .

It's gonna be really hot .

Wow .

That homegrown tomato taste is really coming through .

This stuff is ready for eating .

So let me show you how I like to eat spaghetti sauce .

One of my favorite ways to eat my homemade spaghetti sauce is with zucchini noodles .

Now , you might ask what is a zucchini noodle ?

Well , I don't like to eat a lot of pasta .

I like to keep my carbs real low .

So I make zucchini noodles from my big huge zucchini like this simply by taking a potato peeler and going around my zucchini just turning it as I see y'all .

This is so good .

And before you know it , you've got a nice little pile of zucchini noodles .

OK ?

It's really , really good .

So I'm gonna just lay out a little bit of sauce on top and the sauce is so hot right now .

It's gonna kind of cook the noodles a little bit .

Sometimes I will put the noodles into the microwave for just a few minutes if my sauce isn't quite as hot .

But the sauce has been boiling for three hours .

And boy does it smell good ?

Just lad some on top .

Put a little Parmesan cheese on better than spaghetti .

Can't wait to try this stuff .

It's definitely a labor of love .

It's not hard .

It's just time consuming .

These noodles are a little bit long .

Mm hm .

Delicious .

Wow .

This sauce is so so good .

I also love to use it as pizza sauce .

Make my own pizza dough and put that , the sauce on top .

It was delicious .

Now , I've got this big huge pot .

Obviously , I'm not gonna use it all right away .

So , what I'm gonna do is put it into quart size freezer bags , lay it flat on a tray , freeze it , stick it in the freezer till and have it all winter long .

So , thanks a lot for watching .

I hope you get to try this wonderful homemade spaghetti sauce .

Let me know how yours turns out stuff is so so good .

Mm .

That's great .

Thanks for watching .

See you later .