Making Homemade Spaghetti Sause in your Instant pot from fresh garden tomatoes is as easy as plop, set, cook, and blend!
I literally have tomatoes coming out of my ears! My sweet neighbor planted our garden for us, from leftover plants he had, and has been tending it for us , while we work like crazy this summer! I tease him he is sharing cropping! Our coworkers can't take any more, neighbors are full to the brim, and this weekend I have someone from our free fridge community coming to harvest peppers, and tomatoes for loading our multiple free refrigerators around town. I love them,, it's a donate what you can, take what you need based system, all set up during covid-19, and all sorts of wonderful foods are available in areas of town that are "food deserts" with not as much fresh produce or grocers available.
And. I still have enough to make several batches of homemade pasta sauce! I have a batch started now, while I type this!
I do it the easy way. .no peeling or deseeding the tomatoes. I blend the peels right up after they cook, and no one even knows they are in the sauce. You can run the sauce through a fine mesh strainer if you like to pull out the seeds, but at this point, I don't even bother.
I keep my ingredients simple. My husband is diabetic, so no sugar added, just a bit of olive oil, pinch of salt, italian seasoning, and minced garlic, and if I have onions and peppers ready in the garden, or carrots, or other veggies, I'll toss those in too!
You can preserve your finished sauce by canning it, but I put it in bags or canning jars and freeze it most of the time. I like to keep a few small jars for "pizza " making, so I don't thaw a whole big container, to make pizza or for dipping sauce.
Here's how to make it in the instant pot.
Instant Pot Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
Ingredients:
- 4-5 lbs. fresh Roma tomatoes (about 20-25 for me)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 medium onion diced.
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 5-6 cloves of garlic, minced (about 2 Tbsp)
- 2 Tbsp Italian Seasoning or handful of fresh herbs chopped: (basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme,)
- Optional: diced or shredded carrots, zucchini , green peppers
Instructions:
- Press the saute button on your instant pot and and preheat. Make sure to press "adjust" button and set saute to highest setting.
- When hot, ,add olive oil, onions, and garlic, saute till softened, about 8 minutes.
- Add in any optional vegetables such as diced peppers, carrots, zucchini , saute 5 minutes.
- Add in whole tomatoes and water. Cut into small pieces as needed to fit your instant pot. Mix as you can with other ingredients.
- Replace lid, press "Manuel or Pressure cook" and set to high pressure.
- Set timer for 20 minutes.
- If you have trouble with pot pressurizing, you can add another 1/4 or 1/2 cup of water.
- When finished do either a quick release or slow, natural release.
- Add in salt , and Italian seasoning.
- Use an immersion blender to blend into a sauce. (as smooth or chunky as you like) .
- You can transfer to a regular blender if needed, but be careful due to how hot the sauce is.
- Once cool, pack into quart sized storage containers for your freezer, leaving 1 inch of space at top for expansion when it freezes.
