Tomato Sauce, Properly Reduced
Ten minutes of chopping and stirring, then the stove reduces this to something worth keeping while you do absolutely anything else. The long simmer is what the sauce actually needs; your presence is not part of the requirement.
Each step below is marked active or unattended, so you can see exactly where the clock and your attention part ways.
Method
- Active — Crush the tomatoes by hand directly into a heavy pot, including their juices.
- Active — Add the onion halves, garlic, olive oil, sugar, bay leaf and a good pinch of salt. Stir once to combine.
- Unattended — Bring to a bare simmer — a few lazy bubbles, not a boil — then leave it alone, uncovered, for 90 minutes. Stir only two or three times, mostly to check it is not catching at the bottom.
- Active — The sauce is ready when it has visibly reduced, darkened, and holds together on a spoon rather than running off it.
- Active — Remove the onion halves and bay leaf, taste for salt, and finish with a drizzle of olive oil and torn basil just before serving.
This is the dish to start right before you sit down to do something else — pay bills, answer emails, read. Check it twice in ninety minutes, for perhaps thirty seconds each time. It does not want stirring, supervision, or a timer set for every ten minutes.
Resist stirring it constantly. Agitating a reducing sauce slows the reduction and risks breaking it down into something thinner. Leave it alone and it concentrates itself.
*Approximately 180 calories per serving. Calories are an estimate from standard ingredient databases; actual values vary by brand and portion. See our disclaimer.