For about a month, I’ve been making my own tomato sauce. It’s nothing fancy, but it tastes a lot better than the jarred stuff and comes together in a few minutes. I love that I can control the sugar and salt that goes into it, customizing it for our family.

It’s pretty delicious, inexpensive to make and you may already have the ingredients for it on hand. We have it with noodles, as a dipping sauce and on homemade pizza. Here, Ellie is eating it on a pita pizza. As you can see, she hates it.

I have the formula for a small batch here, but I’d recommend sizing it up. I keep some in the fridge and use it one way early in the week and another way later. The recipe includes measurements, but scale the ingredients up or down based on your family’s taste.

Easy Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1/4 c. finely chopped onions
1 garlic clove, minced
15 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1/4 tsp. Italian herb seasoning
Salt and pepper

In a medium sauce pan, heat extra virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add a finely chopped onion and saute until tender. This may take a while. When it is cooked through, use a microplane to grate the garlic into the hot oil. If you don’t have a microplane, you can always mince the garlic, but for me, this is easier.

As soon as you can smell the garlic, add in the can of crushed tomatoes. Stir in the Italian herb seasoning, salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste.

Let it simmer and bubble together for about 10 minutes. Stir every now and then and adjust the salt and pepper as needed.