Recipe: No-Tomato Sauce (Tomato-Free Pasta Sauce)
[1]Summary: Use this No-Tomato Sauce in all your recipes that call for tomato sauce. Slather onto pizza dough, spoon onto hot pasta or dip pita wedges.
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium red onion, chopped
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 5 cloves garlic, pressed or finely minced
- 1 ½ cups carrots sliced into coins
- 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
[2]Pinch of sea salt- A few grinds of black pepper
- 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
- 1 (8-ounce) package Melissa’s Peeled & Steamed Ready to Eat Baby Beets
- Garnish: fresh chopped basil, parsley and/or oregano, to take it Italian
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Sauté onion and thyme for about 7-10 minutes, until onion starts to brown slightly, stirring often. Add garlic and sauté another minute or so.
- Add to the skillet the carrots, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper and then add just enough water to barely cover the carrots.
- Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer (covered) for 20-30 minutes until the carrots are very soft. (The carrots must be soft for the final sauce to be smooth.)
[3]While the carrots are cooking, add pumpkin puree and beets to a blender container, put the lid on tightly and whirl until smooth. Set aside until the next step.- When carrots are done, scrape the carrot mixture and liquid into the blender with the pumpkin-beet mixture, and put the lid on and blend until smooth. If you think the mixture is too much for your blender, blend in 2 batches.
- Sauce is now done, and can simply be reheated for 2-3 or so minutes, or can be portioned and stored in the refrigerator or freezer for later use.
- Makes about 4 cups sauce.
Quick notes
The sauce will likely lose its red color the longer you cook it (beets turn brown if you overcook them), so a simple quick re-heat is best.
Recipe source
Adapted from this recipe on Angels Homestead [4], and she adapted it from Gluten Free Dairy Free NJ [5].
Secret Recipe Club
[6]
Here is a list of what I have made for the Secret Recipe Club [7] since I joined the group. Check it out!
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Diet type: Vegan
Diet tags: Reduced fat, Gluten free
Number of servings (yield): 6
Culinary tradition: USA (Nouveau)
I found this recipe on Angels Homestead [8], the blog created by April (called Angel in her youth!), who writes about her family’s efforts to live a simple, frugal, self-sufficient, quiet life on a 3-acre homestead in Indiana. Due to a variety of health ailments, she now cooks grain-free, sugar-free, and dairy-free, and primarily follows the Autoimmune Protocol diet without nightshades. The AIP diet helps heal the immune system and gut.
I was exploring her blog as part of Secret Recipe Club [9], the Secret Santa-type group that has members privately cooking from each other’s blogs for a month and revealing the chosen blog and recipe at month’s end. Today is reveal day!
I was tempted by her Ham and Sweet Potato Hash [10] (eggless breakfast anyone?), her Guacamole Coleslaw [11] (are you avoiding dairy? This is for you!), or her Healthy Shamrock Shake Green Smoothie [12] (banana, spinach, yogurt instead of the usual shake sins).
I wanted to make sure I chose a recipe of hers to highlight that shows off her creativity within the constraints of her restrictive diet. So No-Tomato Sauce it is!
[13]
