Part 3 of the Better Know a Mother Sauce series – Tomate! This is rich and savory oven tomato sauce that is flavored with pork and fresh herbs. Learn how to make it and serve it with your favorite pasta!
Oven Tomato Sauce
In case you didn’t know I’ve been making my way through the five mother sauces, so if you’ve missed the first two installments of this series be sure to check out veloute and bechamel. Now it’s time, once again, to get out your berets because it’s time for le classique sauce tomate or, in other words, classic tomato sauce (pardon my French – I haven’t used it since high school).
The best word to describe this sauce? Easy. It’s so easy to make but pays off big in the flavor department. It’s just onions, garlic, carrots, celery, salt pork, crushed tomatoes, and chicken stock. You start it on the stovetop and then finish it in the oven, so it’s very hands-off and low maintenance oven tomato sauce.
To start you render the fat from some salt-cured pork, which is not the same thing as bacon. After a mild stress-out, I found a package at my local grocery store near the bacon, so I think it’s readily available at most regular stores. Once the fat is rendered you cook onion, garlic, carrots, and celery in it until they have softened before adding in the crushed tomatoes. Then you add chicken stock, herbs (I took the plunge and bought some cheesecloth to make a bouquet garni, but you could just add them straight to the sauce) and bring it all to a boil before transferring the pot to the oven. Then it’s hands-off while the sauce simmers in the oven for a couple of hours.
After a couple hours in the oven, the sauce tomate is ready — it just needs to be pureed and strained, unless you are me and forget to strain it (P.S. It still tasted great).
So you might be wondering if the long cook time is worth it – I mean there are plenty of wonderful stove top tomato sauce recipes, so why deal with simmering a pot of all this stuff for a couple hours? I guess it all depends on what you want – if you want a deep tomato flavor infused with porky goodness then this is your sauce. It’s savory and rich without being heavy and can stand well on its own just tossed with some pasta. I subscribe to the belief that there’s always room for one more tomato sauce recipe and I will definitely use this approach again.
So, that’s it for now – I’m getting up very early tomorrow to make my own demi-glace and, pending success (please send good thoughts), I will share what that’s all about sometime next week. So, in the meantime here’s the recipe for le classique sauce tomate. Enjoy and au revoir!
More Tomato Sauce Pasta Recipes
- Spaghetti and Meatballs
- 30-Minute One Pan Beef Penne
- One-Pan Spaghetti Bolognese with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Oven Tomato Sauce (Sauce Tomate)
This oven tomato sauce (sauce tomate) is one of the five mother sauces of French cuisine. Simmering it in the oven creates a rich and savory sauce that can be used as a base for so many dishes!
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Sauces
- Method: Simmer
- Cuisine: French
Ingredients
- 1-ounce salt pork, chopped
- 1 white or yellow onion, diced
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
- 1/2 cup diced carrots
- 1/2 cup diced celery
- 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes (I used San Marzano)
- 16 ounces chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 3–4 sprigs fresh parsley
- 1 bay leaf
- 5 crushed black peppercorns (see note)
- Salt, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
- In a stockpot over medium heat cook the salt pork until the fat is rendered.
- Add the onion, garlic, carrots. and celery to the pot and cook until the veggies start to soften. about 10 minutes.
- Add the crushed tomatoes (plus juices), chicken stock, and herbs. Bring the sauce to a boil and then transfer the pot to the oven. Cover and let it simmer in the oven for at least two hours.
- After the two hours, remove the pot from the oven and fish out the herbs (see note). Puree the sauce using an immersion blender or in batches with a stand blender.
- This recipe makes approximately 4 cups of sauce.
Notes
I wrapped the herbs and spices in cheesecloth, which makes it easy to remove before pureeing the sauce. If you don’t have cheesecloth you can just toss the herbs in the sauce, but be sure to fish out the bay leaf before pureeing. Also, I recommend eliminating the whole peppercorns and seasoning the sauce at the end with fresh ground pepper. You would not want to bite into a whole peppercorn!
Use the sauce as a base for many other recipes that call for tomato sauce. You can also make a big batch and freeze it for later use.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/6 of recipe
- Calories: 127
- Sugar: 8.5g
- Sodium: 503.1mg
- Fat: 5.3g
- Saturated Fat: 1.8g
- Unsaturated Fat: 3.1g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 17.3g
- Fiber: 3.9g
- Protein: 5.1g
- Cholesterol: 6.5mg
Keywords: oven tomato sauce, French tomato sauce recipe
annie@ciaochowbambina says
I can smell it from here! I love the idea of the salt cured pork…such delicious flavor. Thank you for sharing these sauces…I am loving it!
★★★★★
Denise | Sweet Peas & Saffron says
I love reading your saucy adventures (ha ha!) I love learning about French cooking, but don’t have the time these days to execute them properly. I am curious how your demi-glaze goes…last time I made a recipe that called for it, I ended up buying something in a package that said ‘demi glaze’ but I”m 1000 percent sure it isn’t the same as the home made stuff!
April says
Hey Denise – the saucy adventure has been fun, although the time thing is a challenge for me, too. I’m glad I didn’t commit to getting all five done in a week! I made it through the demi-glaze this weekend – wow, took a long time! I’ll be posting about it later this week – thanks so much for your nice note 🙂