Peak Of The Season Tomato Sauce

There's something very satisfying about making Homemade Tomato Sauce during the peak of the tomato season. Bright flavor profiles, along with perfectly balanced acidity with beautiful natural sweetness. 

Peak season tomato sauce is the essence of mother nature smiling at the cooks of the world - so many possibilities.

Perfect tomatoes are a balance of sweetness, acidity, and ripeness. All too often, tomatoes are lacking in flavor. Knowing the right time of the year to make tomato sauce is the key.

Peak Of The Season Tomato Sauce 

And if there's anything we love more than eating peak tomatoes, it's cooking with them! Our newest recipe for Peak Of The Season Tomato Sauce is as beautiful on your plate (and in pictures) as ever before; think bright red sauce packed full of flavor - perfect over any dish or even by itself.

This is an excellent recipe for when the summer season starts to wind down and it's time to make some delicious tomato sauce. Prepare and can now, and keep your taste buds satisfied through winter!

Ingredients

Making the sauce is about balance and preserving the natural flavors of the tomatoes. The idea of tomato sauce is to create an authentic tomato sauce.

• Greenhouse/Plum Tomatoes/San Marzano Tomatoes
• Onion Vidalia
• Tomato paste
• Olive Oil

Would you like to see an impressive list of some of the very best tomatoes in the world? 45 Types Of Tomatoes | A-to-Z | Defined | Photos

When is Tomato Season

The tomato growing season chart by Mother Earth News indicates that tomatoes are ready for harvest in early May. This means the end of summer and beginning fall when temperatures begin their decline across North America (and other parts of the world).

May through October

When is the Peak Tomato Season

August & September

Instructions

Shopping. Not a step to take lightly, oh NO. This is the time to crack the vault and spend some hard-earned money on top-quality tomatoes. I suggest visiting your local farmers market or a grocery store like Central Market / Whole Foods. This is the time to buy organic tomatoes for maximum flavor. #organic #tomatoes

I bought three kinds of tomatoes:

1. Heirloom
2. Organic Tomatoes From Mexico
3. San Marzano Tomatoes - (Regarded as the best tomatoes in the world) (The small tomatoes in the photo above)

Tomato Concasse

The French word for “to crush or grind,” is a very basic cooking technique often applied to vegetables. Concasser means that you will boil scored tomatoes in water before they are peeled and seeded

The Technique

Boil the tomatoes in hot water for two minutes. THE KEY: You have to make/cut an "X" on the bottom of the tomatoes. This technique allows the peel on the tomato to be easily removed.

NOTE: Have an ice bath prepared and ready to go as soon as the two minute timer is up. Shock the tomatoes to stop the cooking process, but mostly to make sure it's easy to remove the peel.

Here's the sweet spot in our process. Roasting the tomatoes, but only the larger tomatoes as the smaller ones (San Marzano tomatoes) will just disappear/dissolve during the roasting process.

1. First, Wash the tomatoes under running water
2. Slice the tomatoes lengthwise making only one cut - We want to keep the tomatoes as large as possible to protect them during the roasting process.
3. Add salt and pepper to the sliced side of the tomatoes.
4. Place the tomatoes face down on a roast tray/cookie sheet. But first, add some oil like olive oil to the pan. Then place the tomatoes face down on the oil. This will help the tomatoes not burn while cooking.
5. Insert-photo_ Mexico Vine Ripen Organic Tomatoes
6. Set your oven to 225 degrees and place the tomatoes in the middle rack on your oven.
7. 
8. Roast the tomatoes for 8 hours, Yep, 8 to 9 hours @225
9. Once you remove the tomatoes from the oven, using a fork, remove the outside peel from the tomatoes. Be sure to keep the peel on while roasting or risk the tomatoes just melting away.

Using a blender, add the roasted tomatoes along with the peeled San Marzano tomatoes to the blender.

NOTE: We have only added a very small amount of salt to the tomatoes before roasting. I want you to not add anymore salt until the end. I didn't even add salt at the end to preserve the natural flavor. You will be so shocked when you taste the finished sauce. Does not need the salt from the quality techniques we used to create this "Peak of the season tomatoes sauce".

Using peak of the season tomatoes is the key factor bringing the flavor to the table.

The sauce is bright and perfectly acidic & has great natural sweetness.

Important Key Step

Next, blend the tomatoes in your blender. BUT only enough to puree them. The longer you puree the tomatoes the more air you'll incorporate into the sauce.

Why does this matter? Because your tomato sauce will end up a light color. More of an orange tomato sauce.

Here's another post I did on Making Homemade Tomato Sauce - You can see what I'm talking about with the color change. This can be an excellent technique for bringing bright color into your sauce and overall plated dish presentation.

Finishing the Sauce

Once the Peak Of The Season Tomato Sauce has been pureed in the blender, then pour the sauce into a medium-sized pot. Cook on the stovetop for a minimum of 30 minutes on a low medium/ low heat. Be sure to stir the sauce along the way. Longer cook times can come with excellent value in flavor.

Longer cook times will do two things:

1. Creates a deeper flavor profile & color - Richer flavor & softens of the acidity level.
2. The natural sugar in the tomatoes will concentrate and become even sweeter. This can make for an amazing sauce.

At this point, we arrived in tomatoes sauce heaven. We created a sauce that is pure, rich and untouched by other ingredients. The sky is the limit now.

Watch How To Make It