Vegetable Sauce Recipe
This hidden vegetable sauce looks, smells, and tastes like a rich, slow-simmered Italian restaurant tomato sauce, but it’s secretly packed with vegetables and fiber! If you’ve ever tried a “veggie-loaded” sauce that looked muddy or tasted underseasoned, this recipe is about to completely change your expectations.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2.5 lbs fresh tomatoes roughly chopped and cores removed
- 1 medium zucchini peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 (6-oz) can tomato paste
- 3 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 medium onions minced
- 12 large cloves garlic minced
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 8 oz white mushrooms minced
- 2 medium carrots minced
- 2 medium stalks celery minced
- 1 red bell pepper minced
- 4 cups water
- 1 (28-oz) can diced tomatoes
- 1/3 cup dry white wine
- 1/4 cup vegan chicken bouillon powder
- 1/2 cup frozen spinach
- 2 Tbsp light brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
- 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
Instructions
- To a high-powered blender, add the fresh tomatoes, zucchini, and tomato paste. Blend on high until the mixture is smooth and seeds / tomato skins are pulverized. If your blender gets stuck or won’t blend completely, feel free to add 1 of the 4 cups of water to the blender (but then use 3 cups of water in Step 4). Once blended, set this aside.
- Before you get the stove started, I find it helpful to mince all the veggies we’ll be using ahead of time. You can do this by hand, or (my preference) use a small food processor or vegetable chopper to mince each vegetable: onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrots, celery, and bell pepper. I then keep the veggies in small bowls, so they’re ready to be added to the pot when needed!
- Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan on medium high heat. Add your onions, garlic, salt, and dried basil. Stir to coat and saute for 5-7 minutes, until the onions are translucent.
- Then, add the mushrooms, carrots, celery, and red bell pepper. Stir and cook another 2-3 minutes.
- Add the tomato mix from the blender, 4 cups water, canned tomatoes, wine, and bouillon. Stir, cover, and bring to a simmer.
- When simmering, remove the cover and stir in the spinach, brown sugar, Italian seasoning, and red pepper flakes. Turn heat to medium low and allow the sauce to simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally for about 40 minutes.
- At this point, if you'd like the sauce to be smoother, use an immersion blender to blend all the ingredients together now! I like to use mine just a little, so the sauce is a nice mix of creamy and chunky.
- Stir again after you blend and continue to cook, stirring and scraping the bottom periodically, for 1-3 hours or until the sauce reaches your desired consistency.
- Before serving, taste and adjust the seasonings as you see fit. If it's too tart, you can add another Tbsp or two of brown sugar. I know it seems weird, but this totally balances the sauce out without making it overtly sweet!
- Serve this sauce over pasta dishes, in any recipe that calls for marinara or pasta sauce, or as a dipping sauce for breadsticks or on top of pizzas and the like! See leftover instructions in the notes section below. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
If you’re working with REALLY picky eaters here and want the smoothest sauce possible, just transfer it to your high speed blender when finished cooking to do one final blend until completely smooth. You may need to do this in batches depending on the size of your blender.
*If you have trouble blending the tomatoes, zucchini, and tomato paste at first, add 1 cup of the 4 cups of water to the blender. Chopping the tomatoes and adding those to the blender first (before the other ingredients) helps avoid the stuck blender issue!
Nutrition
Serving: 1cupCalories: 101kcalCarbohydrates: 13gProtein: 3gFat: 4gSaturated Fat: 1gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 3gSodium: 999mgPotassium: 498mgFiber: 3gSugar: 8gVitamin A: 3655IUVitamin C: 32mgCalcium: 54mgIron: 1mg
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