Tweak this pasta sauce recipe?

Looks like a good basic sauce. I like that it has all those vegs. I once worked on a cookbook that said, "To get children to eat more vegetables, hide them in spaghetti sauce." Hide what -- the children? :lol:

It's okay to use a little oil to cook the turkey, onion, and garlic right in the pot -- even just a teaspoon or two will help them brown and bring out more flavor, and hardly add any fat to the finished sauce. Olive is best, but any will work. (Changed to account for the turkey; you may as well cook it in the sauce pot, because that way you'll keep the juices. If you use lean turkey, it won't add much fat anyway.)

Use whatever red wine you have around, as long as it's drinkable. :beer:

If you use the fresh herbs, don't add them until the very end; all that long cooking will reduce the bright flavor you get from them. But if you want to add dried basil, use a little less than 2 tablespoons and add it when the recipe says. If you like oregano, sure, add some, too: add dried early, fresh at the end (the amount is up to you; the rule of thumb is three times as much fresh as dried, so you could add 1 teaspoon dried or 1 tablespoon fresh, for example). As for the parsley: don't use dried, it has no flavor. Just use fresh, and add it at the end.

Only add the sugar at the end if the sauce tastes too tart to you. Decent tomatoes don't need sugar, and the carrots will add sweetness. And use the best canned tomatoes you can. You could use whole tomatoes instead, just chop them up a bit before you add them. (You can squish them with your hands, lots of fun! :lol:)

Don't use tomato sauce instead, but if you want to add a small can of tomato paste, thin it with a little water to make it easier to mix in. It will make for a thicker, more tomato-y sauce. But it also has a tendency to burn, so keep the sauce on a low flame and stir it often.

Hope this helps! :D

Yeah, pretty much what Suzanne said. Except that if adding tomato sauce I would drop the tomatoes down to one can. I also think that between the tomatoes and the wine there's enough liquid so you don't have to thin-down the sauce.

I'm not big on the idea of cooking onions in a dry pan. Even a thin film of oil will help, and won't add much in the way of calories. Consider using spray olive oil to just moisten the pan.

Just as an aside: While I applaud your desire to eat healthy it's easy to get carried away with the concept. Your body actually needs some fats and oils. The secret is to just not go overboard. With nutrition, as with most things, the secret is balance and moderation.

I'd say, use a little oil for the onion.
Fry the garlic with the onion to release flavor.
Turkey is really weird in tomato sauce, and if you don;t want to use beef or pork why do you need meat at all? If yuou have good tomatoes, the sauce will be good.
If you like herbs, be VERY subtle, and generally, i would choose one.
I donl;t like basil cooked, it changes flavor - it;s nice added fresh on top of the pasta once you've mixed the sauce into it.
I like to put the parmigiano directly on the hot, drained pasta, and then add the sauce and mix. It makes it melt and i think it;s tastier. .
If you use herbs, go very light, esp origano, which is not so used in italy as everyone thinks.
Tomato paste is used by the teaspoon, with water, when you have no tomatoes. Don;t use it, and certainly not by the can.
No need for tomato sauce if you have good tomatoes.
Just my two cents, of course, you should follow your taste, and make it the way you like it.

I have to ask, isn't this splitting the hair a little bit? How many calories can a tablespoon or two of olive oil add? (I know, Blue, go read the bottle, but I'm at work now.)

If the diner is on such a calorie-restricted diet that this makes a difference, is pasta the best meal choice?

Firstly...Turkey? It has a "taste" in a tomato sauce I and others find odd. Why not use free range chicken. Doesnt have to be breast meat...In a decent bird the thighs are tastier and far cheaper.
Secondly ...I agree with Siduri and saute the garlic with the onions...It needs it

Then, I'm thinking why are you simmering for hours? 25 mins is plenty. Dried oregano is one of the dried goodies. IMPO dried basil is a definite no-no. Add fresh along with chopped parsley or chervil towards the end.

Unless you are using free range turkey you can pretty much cancel out the health benefits of using turkey. Mass produced, like chickens, they are sickly creatures that do you no good.

If using tinned tomatoes, instead of adding sugar i use a splash of sweet chilli sauce for background kick.

Ps. As Suzanne says, use a drinkable wine, but add it to the onions and garlic and reduce to a tbsp.

PPs. welcome to the forum BTW

I don't like carrots in this kind of sauce - I feel it adds too much sweetness. I also think that any Italian sauce with tomatoes cries out for olive oil.

I also add a splosh of Worcester sauce - but Bughut's sweet chili is an interesting idea I may have to try!

I agree that minced turkey isn't really a favourite - in fact, I've only tried it a couple of times because I didn't like the taste. Even minced chicken isn't that great.

A main meal of 400 calories seems a little mean to me - and believe me, I watch everything I eat!

Hey Ishbel,
I always add Worcestershire sauce too and plenty of it. ie. If you think you've added enough, add a wee bit more.
I add carrots to bolognese just for the bite and the texture. I aso add baby spinach sometimes, once ive turned the heat off.

InAwe, Add the fresh herbs once you turn the heat off. As you're gathering plates and heating them, thats plenty of time for them to do their work. BTW Parsley stalks added early will give great flavour. Just mind and take them out.

Chili sauce can be a very personal thing. We use Linghams. It's Malaysian. I use garlic and chili favour, OH prefers the basic recipe. Dont know if you get it in the US. Sweet chilli suace is readily available in the supermarket. just go with the one you prefer

Correct with the wine reduction

It's funny how a simple recipe like tomato sauce can be interpreted in so many ways. Some people cook for hours, some only a few minutes. Some swear by fresh herbs, while others use dried. Some add carrots, others scoff at the idea. And some crazies even add worchestershire sauce!!! :eek: :lol::lol: Personally, like my sauces many ways, depending on my mood and the weather. During summer I tend to make short cooked sauces using fresh herbs. These sauces are bright and full of fresh flavors of tomatoes and herbs, but in winter I like the hearty depth of a long simmered sauce. Sure the bright, fresh flavor of the tomatoes is lost, but it is replaced by a wonderful depth that short cooked sauces can't achieve.

As for the ground turkey, why do you add it? Is it for the the texture? If so then consider grinding or finely mincing mushrooms, especially portobello mushrooms and adding it when you cook your onions. It provides a great texture and much better flavor than the ground turkey.

I would add a little bit of fresh grated nutmeg. Also instead of the sugar, try brown sugar.
Fresh oregano is a lot stronger than dried. I use dried oregano and bay leaves. Then at the end, add fresh basil.
I've heard of carrots in a sauce. I personally like onion and celery, minus the carrot.

I personally don't see much way of making a tomato sauce without some olive oil but hey whatever floats your boat. Speaking from experience it's a surefire way to scorch your veggies and carbon is not part of my healthy diet. You may consider using a little vegetable broth to sautee your veggies in. They'll come out kind of braised but it's better than scorched.

If you must use a protein and it must be turkey I would suggest browning and cooking through the meat first. Season with salt/pepper and set aside to add to the sauce later. Taste and texture wise I'd leave it out and replace it with eggplant.

Then begin sweating out your veggies. All veggies are welcome, celery included. I sautee the veggies adding them in this order:

Onions & carrots
Garlic and celery
Zucchini
Mushrooms

Then deglaze with the wine. Add the tomatoes and you're off to making a sauce.

If you want to add even more depth of flavor you could try roasting your diced tomatoes before you add them to the sauce. You can add some canned tomatoes but be careful of the ingredients, they are often loaded with High fructose corn syrup. I don't care for carrots in my sauce but if you use them be aware that they will add lots of sweetness which means sugar will not be necessary.

Sometimes I have added a small can of low sodium V8 to my sauces just to be different.

Fresh herbs are delicate. Their leaves contain essential oils that are released with heat. If they stay in the sauce for a long period of time their flavor will diminish drastically and may start to become bitter. Cooks like to add fresh herbs at the end of cooking because that's when they will be most fragrant and retain their beautiful color. It's also nice to have flavors that are both complex from long cooking times and exude fragrant freshness.

Bay leaves are dry, and dry aromatics are put in at the beginning of cooking time - it takes a long time to draw out their flavors as opposed to fresh herbs which release them at the slightest hint of heat. Put it in when you put in the tomatoes and remove the bay leaf before you serve the sauce - they are not edible.

Depending on your tomatoes the sauce could take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Taste as you're cooking. Don't overcook the tomatoes if it's not necessary as with longer cooking you gradually lose their nutritional benefits.

Take the sauce off the heat and let it sit for at least 1/2 hour before you serve it. I've never heard of recipes calling for cooling a sauce but in my experience the longer it cools the more the flavors develop. Remember to make enough to freeze for later use - might as well since you'll be putting in all that work.

sambal oolek belongs in every kitchen- it is chili paste, but not sweet- ground chiles, vinegar, and salt

a half teaspoon will brighten up every dish and enhance the flavor of the ingredients instead of masking it, like herbs tend to

InAwe, to discover just how quickly fresh herbs give up their goodness, take a sprig of any fresh herb. Smell it. Then rub a few leaves between your palms and smell again.

You'll immediately note the difference.

Heat does the same thing. So by adding fresh herbs at the end (often when you've actually finished cooking) the residual heat of the dish is all it takes to release the flavors.

Long cooking, as others have noted, can actually turn them bitter.

So, the rule of them is that you add spices and dried herbs early, and fresh herbs at the end.

Generally speaking, dried herbs are stonger tasting than fresh. So you use them on a 1:3 basis. That is, 1 teaspoon of dried equals 3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) of fresh. However, not all herbs dry well, from a culinary standpoint. Dried parsley, for instance, add nothing to a dish. And dried basil has a completely different flavor (some say objectional, in fact) then fresh.

As to amounts, it's really a matter of experimenting to discover how much of a particular herb appeals to your tastebuds. There are no hard and fast rules for this.

With all of the additions, it will serve more than 5 now. And you'll lneed to adjust seasonings again to account for the added bulk of food.

You've got 3 quarts of ingredients there. Even with reduction in simmering, that will feed more people as a pasta sauce than just 5. That's about 3 cups of sauce per person as written.

You're talking 2 tbls of dry oregano?

That might be a bit much, as dry oregano can be pretty intrusive stuff. I'd cut it at least in half, the first time you actually make the sauce. Then you can make any adjustments later on.

A little salt & pepper never hurts. But overall you've got plenty of aromatics between the carrots, onions, celery and garlic, plus the herbs and chili sauce. So I don't think you'll be lacking in flavor.

I probably "missed something", but I'm curious as to how you "sauté" something in vegetable broth?

You might be able to "steam" something or even "boil" something but as long as you're using a "water based liquid", the temperature will NEVER exceed 212°F (100°C) and that is definitely not hot enough to "sauté" anything!

Even if you used, oh, 3 Tablespoons of oil for sautéing and the recipe yields 3 quarts, you'd end up with, at most, 3/4 teaspoon of oil per cup of sauce or right at 2% fat and, IMHO, a far better tasting sauce. If you drained the sautéed vegetables, you could cut it to less than 1%, well below the RDA for fat.

Personally, I thing you will be unhappy with the turkey breast unless you're simply looking to add "protein" without regards to taste or texture. You might be better off using TVP, but that's just me ;)

You're right it's technically impossible to sautee anything in a broth, but many people I know who are on extreme diets do this. The key is to only have enough broth to barely cover the bottom so that it evaporates quickly and acts as a shield so that the ingredients don't scorch on the bottom. Hopefully you will take our advice and add at least a spritz of olive oil.

I think if you want to include protein in this dish the best way would be to grill a chicken breast and then serve it sliced on top of the sauce on your plate. Chicken breast can get very tough if you cook it twice so you may not want to throw it into the sauce later.

All in all you'll enjoy your sauce if you go about it sensibly. Most often it's the process that builds flavors, not the ingredients.

The salt is low - I don't measure my salt but I do season between most steps. Everytime you add an ingredient you must adjust the salt. The only way to do this accurately is to taste the sauce frequently.

You'll have plenty of left overs for your freezer.

Onion, celery and carrots (+garlic if you want it, say 1 clove minced) all in together. Typical mix, for a good reason. It tastes good :) If you are cooking for 4, say 1 bay leaf, after you have lightly sauteed the first vegetables.

Then the dried oregano - for 4 - half a teaspoon (I aslo add smoked paprika, just a shake or 3). Let it cook a little. Also some S&P.
Now, your turkey mince, just brown it. Mash it all down.
Next, your red wine (I prefer a shiraz), let it cook and bubble away for a bit. Tsp of sugar also.

Tomatoes in their juices - diced & tinned is really handy. Stir - add some water if it seems too dry. Cover.

Cook down for half an hour...if its still too wet, simmer a while with lid off, once to your favorite consistency, heat off, then add any fresh cut herbs, serve and enjoy.

as far as the oregano, even cut in half that is a huge amount

a pinch is more like it