Simple Sauces Part 4–Tomato Sauce

Everyone needs a good all-purpose tomato sauce, one that can be used for everything from chicken parmesan to pizza to pasta. It needs to be easy to make and open to additions of vegetables, herbs, and meats.
This is that sauce.
It's kind of a miracle that this just happened to be the sauce because I kind of chose it arbitrarily, but whatever! It's a great tomato sauce.


Basic Tomato Sauce (from the side of bionaturae's Organic Strained Tomatoes):




Ingredients:


1 jar strained tomatoes (preferably organic, bionaturae recommended)
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

4 minced garlic cloves
4 teaspoons dried basil (or 8 fresh minced basil leaves)
Sea salt to taste


Instructions:


Place olive oil, minced garlic, and sea salt in a medium saucepan over medium heat and sauté until garlic is golden.

Pour strained tomatoes in and stir.

Simmer for 5-10 minutes.

I recommend not serving it with the slotted spoon.

As I mentioned before, this sauce lends itself to any occasion. You want to throw some chopped tomatoes in there? Sure.
You want to sauté onions and carrots with the garlic? Done.
Ground beef? Just toss it in (cooked, of course).
Chicken chunks? Go for it.
Anchovies? ...Maybe stick with chicken.

Even in its most basic form, this sauce is tasty. The organic tomatoes jibe perfectly with the garlic. The reason I love bionaturae's Organic Strained Tomatoes because the only ingredient is tomatoes. No additives or preservatives, just pureéd tomatoes. Their sauce recipe is insanely easy to prepare as well; it can be made in less than 15 minutes, perfect for those "Oh crap! I forgot to make a sauce for the pasta tonight!" moments.
Please pray for my grandfather. He is currently very ill in the hospital.