Marcella Hazan Tomato Sauce With Onion And Butter, Simplified

If you are familiar with Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with onion and butter , you know it is made with three ingredients, four if you count salt. How then, you might be wondering, can such a sauce be simplified?

Simply: by using unpeeled tomatoes. Here, the ingredients are the same as Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce but there’s no scoring of the tomatoes and blanching them to remove their skins, and there’s no discarding of the halved onion at the end. Everything, rather, is puréed together at the end.

Here’s the how-to:

Homemade Tomato Sauce in 4 Simple Steps

1. Slice two onions , and place them in a pot with a stick of butter.
2. Meanwhile, chop up 4 pounds of tomatoes , and add them to the pot with a teaspoon of kosher salt .
3. Simmer for 1 hour .
4. Purée with an immersion blender, food processor, or traditional blender.

Taste your fresh, bright tomato sauce, then smile for days as you put it on everything: pizza , pasta , crispy eggplant rounds , savory monkey bread , eggplant involtini , zucchini involtini , summer squash gratin , etc.

Friends, should you find yourself with a haul of tomatoes, this modified Marcella tomato sauce recipe might come in handy. I think we’ve picked the last from our little raised bed, which did well this year, treating us to a good run of bagel-cream cheese-and-tomato breakfasts. I’m not ready for fall.

PS: ALL the tomato recipes here .

Here’s the visual play-by-play for making a simplified Marcella tomato sauce:

1. Melt a stick of butter.

2. Slice two large onions (typically I use white) and add to melted butter.

3. Sweat onions for 15 minutes or until they …

4. turn white! Kidding. Cook until the onions are soft.

5. Meanwhile, dice four pounds of tomatoes.

6. Add them to the pot with a teaspoon of kosher salt.

7. Bring to a simmer. After five minutes, the tomatoes will look like this:

8. After about an hour, they look like this:

9. Purée the sauce with an immersion blender, or transfer to a food processor or blender (taking care the lid is on tightly lest it blow off during the whirring).

10. Transfer puréed sauce to storage containers. These are my favorite: 1-Quart Deli Containers Such a great size for all sorts of foods.

11. Use sauce in your favorite recipes, perhaps a roasted eggplant and Swiss chard lasagna? Stay tuned.

Description

This is a modified/simplified recipe of Marcella Hazan’s famous tomato sauce with onion and butter. To sum up the changes: I don’t peel the tomatoes, I slice the onion and sweat it with the butter first, then add the tomatoes. After about an hour simmer, I purée it. This is just easier for me, and I find the taste of the sauce to still be fresh and bright.

Here I’ve doubled the quantities of the original recipe, so feel free to make a half batch or multiply the quantities if you wish, too.

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 large onions, thinly sliced
• 4 pounds tomatoes, dice into 1/2 -inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large pot. Add the onion and cook gently, lowering the heat if necessary, until the onions are soft, about 15 minutes. (The onions should take on very little color, but if they brown a little, it’s fine.)
2. Add the tomatoes and salt to the pot and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring every so often to ensure the onion isn’t scorching on the bottom of the pan. (If you cover the pan for 2 minutes, the mixture will come to a boil more quickly.) Once the mixture is simmering, lower the temperature, so the mixture is gently bubbling—medium heat should do it. Simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally until the mixture has reduced and feels somewhat thick as you run a spoon through it. Purée with an immersion blender or transfer mixture to a food processor or blender (taking care to hold the lid down tightly lest it blast off due to the steam) and purée until smooth. Taste. Add more salt to taste.
3. Once cool, transfer to storage containers and refrigerate for up to a week or freeze for months.

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hours 15 minutes
• Category: Sauce
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: Italian

Description

This is a modified/simplified recipe of Marcella Hazan’s famous tomato sauce with onion and butter. To sum up the changes: I don’t peel the tomatoes, I slice the onion and sweat it with the butter first, then add the tomatoes. After about an hour simmer, I purée it. This is just easier for me, and I find the taste of the sauce to still be fresh and bright.

Here I’ve doubled the quantities of the original recipe, so feel free to make a half batch or multiply the quantities if you wish, too.

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 large onions, thinly sliced
• 4 pounds tomatoes, dice into 1/2 -inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste

1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large pot. Add the onion and cook gently, lowering the heat if necessary, until the onions are soft, about 15 minutes. (The onions should take on very little color, but if they brown a little, it’s fine.)
2. Add the tomatoes and salt to the pot and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, stirring every so often to ensure the onion isn’t scorching on the bottom of the pan. (If you cover the pan for 2 minutes, the mixture will come to a boil more quickly.) Once the mixture is simmering, lower the temperature, so the mixture is gently bubbling—medium heat should do it. Simmer for about an hour, stirring occasionally until the mixture has reduced and feels somewhat thick as you run a spoon through it. Purée with an immersion blender or transfer mixture to a food processor or blender (taking care to hold the lid down tightly lest it blast off due to the steam) and purée until smooth. Taste. Add more salt to taste.
3. Once cool, transfer to storage containers and refrigerate for up to a week or freeze for months.

• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 hours 15 minutes
• Category: Sauce
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: Italian

Find it online : https://alexandracooks.com/2017/09/20/marcella-hazan-tomato-sauce-onion-butter-simplified/

With layers of no-boil noodles, roasted eggplant rounds, sautéed Swiss chard, and a mix of parmesan and mozzarella, this eggplant lasagna is a summer favorite 🍆🍆🍆🍆🍆

This time of year, you can’t have too many eggplant recipes up your sleeve, so today I’m sharing a favorite way to use up a heap of it: roasted eggplant lasagna.

As far as lasagna recipes go, this one is on the unfussy side: there’s no layer of bechamel, no layer of ricotta and egg, and it calls for no-boil noodles. Moreover: there’s no need to salt the eggplant to draw out its moisture — roasting takes care of that.

In sum, this lasagna is a layering of homemade tomato sauce , noodles, roasted eggplant rounds, sautéed Swiss chard (optional), and a mix of parmesan and mozzarella. As noted, I’ve omitted the classic ricotta + egg layer here because I’ve never loved it, but feel free to add it. This is a recipe that can be tailored to your liking.

In fact, use it as a guide! You can really add any cooked vegetables you like: roasted red peppers, sautéed mushrooms, roasted butternut squash, sautéed beet greens, roasted cauliflower, etc. Any number of roasted ( or sautéed! or grilled! ) vegetables will work — the key is to use cooked vegetables to ensure the water has been removed.

How to Layer Eggplant (or other) Lasagna

This is the layering process outlined in the recipe below:

• 1/2 cup tomato sauce (such as this one or this one )
• 3 sheets no-boil noodles (I love the Barilla brand )
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• layer of cooked vegetables
• 1/2 cup grated cheese
• repeat

The goal is to have 1/2 cup of sauce on either side of the layer of no-boil noodles.

If you’ve got homemade sauce and a stash of roasted or sautéed or steamed—cooked!—vegetables on hand, the assembly here is fast thanks to no-boil noodles (a miracle!). Otherwise, save this one for the weekend. It’s not hard, but making the sauce, roasting the eggplant, sautéeing the chard, grating the cheese, etc., all take time.

How to Freeze Eggplant Lasagna

After the lasagna bakes for 40 minutes covered with foil, remove it from the oven and let it cool completely. Wrap the pan tightly in plastic wrap or cover with a foil lid if using a disposable pan and transfer to the freezer for up to 3 months. To thaw: Transfer to the fridge 24 hours before baking. To bake: Place covered pan in preheated 350ºF for 30 minutes; uncover and bake for 5-10 minutes more.

How to Make Roasted Eggplant Lasagna

Here’s the play by the play: You need about 3 pounds of eggplant.

Slice the eggplants into 1/4-inch thick slices, toss with olive oil and salt, and roast for about 20-25 minutes or until the undersides are lightly golden.

Meanwhile, if you wish, sauté some Swiss chard.

Gather your components: roasted eggplant rounds, grated parmesan, mozzarella, tomato sauce, sautéed Swiss chard, and no-boil noodles.

Begin the layering by spreading 1/2 cup sauce into a 9×13-inch pan and topping it with 3 sheets of no-boil noodles. Add another layer of sauce, the vegetables, and cheese; then repeat.

On top of the fourth and final layer of noodles, spread atop more sauce and a final blanket of cheese.

Cover with foil. At this point, you can stash the lasagna in the fridge for 24 hours or you can bake it immediately at 350ºF for 40 minutes; then uncover and bake for 5 to 10 minutes more.

Description

With layers of no-boil noodles, roasted eggplant rounds, sautéed Swiss chard, and a mix of parmesan and mozzarella, this eggplant lasagna is a favorite.

Use this recipes as a guide. I have made countless variations of this same formula: tomato sauce + mozzarella+ parm + cooked vegetables + no-boil noodles.

You really can add any cooked vegetables you like: roasted red peppers, sautéed mushrooms, roasted butternut squash, sautéed beet greens, roasted cauliflower, etc.

I like the Barilla no-boil noodles. The box is 9 oz, but I don’t use all 15 sheets — you need 12 here. Save the remaining 3 sheets in a ziplock bag.

I’ve never loved the ricotta-egg layer of lasagna, so I’ve omitted it here.

• 2 to 3 small-ish eggplant (about 2 to 3 pounds)
• grapeseed oil
• kosher salt
• 10 to 12 ounces greens, such as Swiss chard, kale, or mustard greens, leaves removed from stems and finely chopped (you should have about 8 oz . greens post trimming)
• 1 quart tomato sauce, such as this one or this one
• 1 box no-boil noodles (about 9 oz , you’ll need 12 sheets, see notes above)
• 4 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano, grated (about 1 cup )
• 8 ounces fresh mozzarella (not stored in brine), pulled into small pieces or low-moisture, whole milk mozzarella, grated

1. Preheat the oven to 450° F (convection roast if possible). Slice the eggplant into 1/4-inch thick rounds. Spread into single layers on two baking sheets. Drizzle 3 to 4 tablespoons grapeseed oil over top. Toss to coat. Spread back into a single layer and season generously with kosher salt. Roast the eggplant for 20 minutes or so, rotating the pans halfway—the eggplant is done when the undersides are golden brown and release easily from the pan with a metal spatula. This may take longer than 20 minutes and may require more than one rotation of the pans. Be sure to check the eggplant slices periodically—for instance, the slices on the perimeter of my sheetpan always brown/finish cooking first. Transfer eggplant to a plate. Turn the heat down to 350° F.
2. Meanwhile, place a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil. When the oil shimmers, add the greens, and sauté turning the greens with tongs to help them cook evenly. Season with a good pinch of salt. When the greens have shrunk way down, they’re done—this will happen in 1 to 3 minutes. Turn off the heat and transfer the greens to a plate to cool.
3. Set up an assembly line with your tomato sauce, no-boil noodles, plate of eggplant and greens, grated parmesan, pulled-apart mozzarella. Spread a 1/2 cup of tomato sauce over the bottom of a 9×13-inch pan. Top with 3 no-boil noodles. Spread another 1/2 cup of sauce over top. Layer eggplant in a single layer over top. Spread a thin layer of greens over top. Spread about 1/4 cup of parmesan over top, then 1/4 cup mozzarella. Repeat this layering until you have four layers of noodles, then top the final layer of noodles with another 1/2 cup tomato sauce (or more) and the remaining cheese. (The idea is to always have about 1/2 cup tomato sauce on either side of the noodles, but you can’t go wrong here.)
4. Cover pan with foil and refrigerate until ready to bake or transfer to oven and bake 40 minutes covered. Remove foil, and bake for 5 to 10 minutes if desired to lightly brown the top. If you like a darker, more caramelized top, increase the oven temperature to 400ºF for the last 5-10 minutes.
5. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting and serving.
6. To Reheat: Transfer slices (or the entire leftover pan … whatever amount you wish) to a small sheet pan, cover with foil, and heat for 15 minutes at 350 F. Uncover and cook for 5 minutes more.

• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 60 minutes
• Category: Dinner
• Method: Oven
• Cuisine: Italian, American