Sep
2013
No-Mato Sauce ~ Tomato Free Pasta Sauce
You heard that right, a sauce that mimics tomato sauce, but without any tomatoes. I didn’t believe it either when I first found the recipe, but after making it I’m happy to say that it is possible.
Let me back up a little and explain how my quest for a tomato-less sauce came about. For years I’ve suffered from GERD’s. The medical term for heartburn. Not just any heartburn though, I’m talking the severe stuff. So bad that I’ve been on the strongest prescription medication they have for it for the last 6 years. Even with medication though I still suffered. Since going gluten free, I have greatly reduced my heartburn, but still had flare-ups. After starting a food journal about a month ago, I am finally starting to pinpoint the foods that give me the most trouble. Unfortunately one of them is tomatoes, one of my absolute favorite foods.
Not a good thing when you use tomatoes in some form in a lot of your cooking. How in the world was I going to enjoy my families favorite chili recipe, or pizza without tomato sauce? So I set out on a quest to find a substitute, even though I wan’t hopeful at finding one. Turns out there IS a tomato sauce substitute out there called Nomato, an idea born from a family who wanted to make something their severely allergic child could enjoy on her pasta. Of course you know me, if it’s sold in a store, then I want to make it homemade. I did a little more searching and finally found a recipe for homemade nomato sauce.
I almost didn’t make it after I seen the ingredient list. It contains beets, a vegetable I absolutely hate, and I mean that literally. I’ve tried it several times over the years, but no matter how it was prepared, I swear they taste like dirt to me. Has anyone else had that reaction to them, or am I the only one? So I almost passed the recipe up, but after I read her claim that she didn’t like beets either, and that she swore you couldn’t taste the beets in the finished product, I decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did to, because you really can’t taste them at all! Trust me, as much as I detest beets, I wouldn’t eat it if I could taste them. While it doesn’t taste exactly like tomato sauce, how could it when it doesn’t contain any tomato, it is very, very close, and makes a fabulous pizza sauce. I’ll share that recipe with you soon. And the best part of all? NO heartburn after eating it!
So if you are allergic to tomatoes, or can’t enjoy them because they give you heartburn like me, then I highly recommend this recipe.
Use this no-mato sauce in all your recipes that call for tomato sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1 cup of carrots, sliced into coins
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- Salt to taste
- Fresh ground black pepper to taste
- 1 - 15 oz can pumpkin puree
- 1/3 cup pure olive oil
- 1 - 8-ounce can beets
Directions
- Saute the onion and garlic in a pot with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until it starts to brown slightly.
- Add the carrots, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and add just enough water to barely cover the carrots.
- Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer (covered) for 20-30 minutes until the carrots are very soft. (For the final sauce to be smooth, the carrots need to be very soft).
- Blend the carrot mixture, pumpkin puree and olive oil together until smooth, either in a blender or with an immersion blender. Add back to the pot.
- Puree the contents of the can of beets, liquid included, in a blender until very smooth
- Add the pureed beets to the pot with the carrot mixture and simmer for about five minutes, stirring well to combine.
- I portion my sauce out into 2 cup servings without any additional seasonings. and season the sauce further right before using, depending on the recipe I'm using it for. For pasta sauce, use your favorite Italian seasonings.
- Try my recipe for Spaghetti Sauce, reducing cooking time to 5 minutes.
Notes
Keep in mind that this sauce will lose its red color the longer you cook it, so be sure to adjust the point at which you add the sauce to whatever you are cooking. This sauce also freezes great.
Adapted From: Gluten Free Dairy Free NJ
Shared with these fun Link Parties.
april
Latest posts by april (see all)
- Roasted Garlic Cauliflower - January 15, 2014
- Spanish Fried Cauliflower - January 14, 2014
- Mom, What’s For Supper? Grain-Free Weekly Menu 1/13 - January 13, 2014