After watching several cooking shows and doing several Internet searches for good basic marinara sauce, I’ve found that that Italian cooking generally uses fresh ingredients and keeps it simple. I like that and kept that in mind while searching for recipes to make my own. I’ve also discovered the difference between the cheap almost scentless olive oil I get in bulk at Costco and a good flavoring/salad dressing olive oil. I still use my Costco olive oil for cooking, but to add olive oil flavor, I get out the good stuff.

As a half beaner I’m not going to make any claims to the authenticity of the Italian-esk marinara recipe that I’ve come up with, but if nothing else it’s a great base to build upon.

• ¼ cup of good flavoring/salad dressing olive oil – It should say on the bottle that it’s for flavoring
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5lbs of tomatoes – Aside from cherry, grape or other tiny tomato, to me it doesn’t matter what kind of tomatoes. Ideally they should be ripe, but if they aren’t that’s ok.
• 1 carrot, very finely chopped. Very fine. Like bits the size of a baby’s fingernail, fine. This can be omitted if the tomatoes are all perfectly ripe. I use a carrot instead of refined sugar to cut down the acidity of the tomatoes. Don’t worry if you absolutely hate cooked carrots, if it’s chopped finely enough I promise you won’t taste it at all. Really, you won’t.
• Fresh basil
• Salt
• Pepper

Chop the onion and sauté in the olive oil until translucent. Start a pot of water boiling to dip the tomatoes in. They’ll only be in for a minute or two until you see the skin start to split. Move the tomatoes to a bowl of cold water to cool and peel the skins off. Then either coarsely chop or blend the tomatoes depending on the desired consistency. Add the carrot, two or three sprigs of fresh basil, salt and pepper to taste. Bring it all to a boil, and then simmer for thirty to forty-five minutes for the flavors to meld. I remove the basil before storing, but if the majority of your recipes call for basil, there isn’t any reason for removal. This recipe makes about six cups of marinara.

I don’t use garlic in my basic marinara because not all my recipes use garlic and some use a ton of garlic. I don’t want to have to adjust all my recipes or make multiple batches of marinara with varying garlic content so I simply leave it out.

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