Vegan tomato sauce pasta Recipe
Serves : 4-6 people
Prep Time : 10 min
Cooking : 60 min
Ingredients
Tomato sauce
- 4 x 400 g / 14 oz tins of quality chopped tomatoes or plum tomatoes
- 2 tbsp / 30 ml olive oil
- 5 garlic cloves, finely diced
- 240 ml / 1 cup vegetable stock or water
- 3 tsp brown sugar
- 1-1¼ tsp sea salt
- pepper, to taste
- ½ tsp hot chilli powder or flakes (optional)
- large sprig of basil (optional)
Remaining Ingredients
- handful of Kalamata olives
- handful of chopped walnuts
- 1-2 tsp lemon zest
- fresh parsley, to garnish
- cooked pasta of choice (gluten-free for GF version)
Directions:
- Heat up olive oil in a large frying pan.
- Throw in garlic and stir-fry it on low-medium heat until it softens and becomes fragrant.
- Chuck in tinned tomatoes. If using plum tomatoes squash them with a potato masher first before adding to the pan. Now add stock or water (I tend to rinse my tins out with it to get all the tomato goodness out), add 1 tsp of salt and chilli and simmer (without a lid) on a low heat for about 45-60 minutes giving it a good stir every 10-15 minutes. You want the tomatoes to break down fully and the sauce to thicken so that it coats your pasta nicely.
- Towards the end of cooking time, add a large spring of fresh basil and submerge it in the sauce to release its beautiful aroma. Season the sauce with sugar (to neutralise citric acid used to preserve the tomatoes), pepper and more salt if needed. You can also add a bit more olive oil if you want it to be richer.
- If you want your sauce to be smooth, transfer it into a blender and give it a good whiz. I usually skip this step as I don’t mind my sauce a little chunky.
- Mix the sauce into freshly cooked pasta. Serve with a few olives and a sprinkle of wanuts, lemon zest and fresh parsley.
