Lola’s Kitchen is a feature on Lola’s Reviews where I talk about all things related to food, cooking and baking. These posts can be recipe posts, tens list posts about food or recipes or more discussion type posts about food. I love cooking and spend some time in the kitchen almost every day, so I wanted to give it a place on my blog as well. The banner for this feature is designed by Michelle from Limabean Designs.
For a long time I absolutely hated pasta of any kind, when I was younger tuesday was pasta day and after lots of weeks eating pasta every tuesday I didn’t like it anymore. Nowadays I love pasta again luckily. My boyfriend his parents could make a delicious tomato pasta sauce, my boyfriend learned from them how to make it and then I learned the recipe from him.
The sauce is based on my boyfriends tomato pasta sauce, which he learned to make from his parents.
Ingredients
- Red Bell pepper – 4
- Tomatoes – 4
- Onion – 1
- Meat or vegetable meat substitution (optional)
- Other veggies like mushroom, corn, peas etc (optional)
- Olive Oil
- Garlic – 5 cloves
- Parsley and Basil (optional)
- Tomato Paste – 2 tablespoons
- Low salt vegetable bouillon cube – 2
- Sambal – 1 teaspoon
- Water – 1 cup
- Bay Leaves – 4
- Cornstarch
- Oregano (optional)
This recipe feeds about four people. I often make this recipe and then the first day we eat pasta and the next french bread pizza with the leftover sauce.
You can substitute the tomatoes for a can of tomatoes with tomato juice as well, just use a bit less tomato paste in that case.
Method
- Cut the onion, red bell pepper, tomatoes and garlic in pieces. Put the garlic and onion in a wok or pan and bake it until the onion is translucent.
- Now add the red bell pepper and tomatoes and bake for a few minutes. Then tomato paste, half a liter/ 2 cups water, the bouillon cubes, sambal and bay leaves. Let this cook for about 15 minutes.
- Add any other vegetables or meat you want to add to the sauce now. Add some parsley and basil (Optional).
- Mix some cornstarch into water and when dissolved add to the sauce to make the sauce a bit thicker. Let the sauce cook for a bit longer.
- Serve the sauce with some pasta and enjoy your dinner!
Pictures
Variation Tips
- Vary with veggies, meat and spices. Instead of only red bell pepper, tomatoes and onion you can add other veggies as well, like peas, beans, mushrooms, lentils or corn.
- French Bread Pizza. You can also use this sauce to make french bread pizza or if you have leftovers you can make french bread pizza the next day.
Wow, this looks DELICIOUS! If I had the energy to cook from scratch, I would so try this. Can you just fly over to America and make it for me? Lol. I’ve never really had a chunky tomato pasta sauce, but I’m pretty sure I’d love it since I love tomato. (And red bell pepper and onion.) I’m going to pin this in case I get the chance to make it in the future 🙂
Kristen Burns recently posted…Book Review: The Three Sisters (The Krampus Chronicles Book 1) by Sonia Halbach
Sorry I am terrified of airplanes, so I can’t fly over there. You can come here and I can cook for you ;).
If you love all those ingredients I am pretty sure you will like this dish. I hope you’ll get the chance to make it in the future 🙂
Lola recently posted…Lola’s Kitchen: Tomato Pasta Sauce Recipe
Oh yum! I could eat pasta every day I think. lol There are just so many yummy options. This looks delicious!
anna (herding cats & burning soup) recently posted…#AFTH2015 w/ Tessa Bailey
I agree there are a lot of yummy pasta recipes!
Lola recently posted…Lola’s Kitchen: Tomato Pasta Sauce Recipe
This sounds delicious. I can see why you are back to eating pasta again. 🙂
Sophia Rose recently posted…Christmas Kitsch by Amy Lane, Narrated by Nick J. Russo #Review #HolidayDelight
My mother always bought a premade sauce package and it just didn’t work for me. So I am happy I eventually got back to eating pasta thanks to this recipe :).
Lola recently posted…Review: Saven Deception by Siobhan Davis
oh this look so dang good!! I have been looking for a good pasta sauce recipe. Since I am trying to cook from scratch as much as I can since its healthier and tastes so much better. I have a homemade alfredo sauce I love but haven’t found a tomatoe based one that I like yet. I am SO trying this next week….like really….this could feed me for a week hehe
I agree cooking from scratch usually tastes better, although there are a few dishes where I still use premade packages. Sounds like this recipe came at the right time then as you where looking for a tomato based sauce. Let me know how it turns out when you make it :).
Lola recently posted…Review: Saven Deception by Siobhan Davis
That looks really good. Most days when I make pasta of some kind I just buy a jar of pasta sauce like Ragu or Prego.
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I usually don’t like the taste of jars of pasta sauce, at least not the ones they sell here. Although if you find a good brand those taste probably good as well.
Lola recently posted…Sunday Post #157
I make a very Italian version of pasta sauce that has crushed tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, kalamata olives, and balsamic vinegar in it. It’s become the household favorite! We sometimes add in veggie “meat” balls that are really good too.
S. J. Pajonas recently posted…Sunday Update – December 20, 2015
I don’t like mushrooms or olives, so that’s why those never go into my pasta sauce. I’ll have to try veggie meat balls in this sauce once.
Lola recently posted…Sunday Post #157
I love this recipe. It’s the kind of recipe that goes well with many dishes and that I would make in HUGE batches and then use also for tacos, lasagna, to stuff peppers and squash, etc. Thanks for sharing.
Dragonfly @ Our Familiarium recently posted…A Foodie’s Tale: Grilling Steaks to perfection
Yes you can do so much with this recipe. I’ve used it for lasagna as well and even as wrap filling.