Italian cooks make this sauce with unpeeled fresh tomatoes or canned ones, passing it through a food mill once it's cooked. My preference is for a more rustic juicy sauce with bits of tomato, so I roughly chop it in a blender or food processor. Only if the fresh tomatoes' peels are tough or bitter do I peel them.
Peeled tomatoes are a very widely used preservation method in the Italian tradition, including in home cooking. They are prepared in high summer when the tomatoes are fully ripe, allowing them to be enjoyed year round.
Leave the skins on (they're delicious and nutritious) and you can make several batches of this fresh and flavorful tomato sauce in one easy afternoon.
Why would you peel tomatoes? The tomato skin is a different texture from the tomato flesh, and will remain so in sauces and purées—you'll get tiny chunks of skin instead of an uniformly smooth mixture. Moreover, the tomato skin is heavy in a kind of nutrient called flavonols, which impart a bitter flavor.
Yes, it's worth peeling tomatoes before you make them into pasta sauce. AllRecipes says that removing tomato skins will make your sauce both smoother and sweeter. And chef Simon Hopkinson (via The Guardian) says tomatoes should always be peeled for dishes in which texture matters.
Here's the obvious one: Tiny tomatoes don't need to be peeled. Large heirloom varieties, with their tender skin, don't need peeling either. Hearty beefsteaks and those varieties bred for canning (such as plum or roma) have a pretty thick skin that wouldn't be welcomed in smooth sauces or soups.
But if you don't peel, you will get tough bits of skin floating about in whatever you're making. If it's just one or two tomatoes-worth in a soup, for example, you can just fish them out, but if it's a beautiful, slow-cooked fresh tomato sauce for pasta, they'll kind of ruin the effect.”
You don't need to peel them. After all, tomato skins are edible. However, if you're making a chunky salsa, leaving skins on is fine – as long as the texture doesn't bother you. The advantage of leaving them on is you save time and can make a salsa relatively quickly.
For the purest, tastiest tomato sauce, it's a good idea to remove the skin and seeds first from the tomatoes. To remove the skins, score both ends of the tomatoes with a sharp knife by making a small "X."
Boil the tomatoes for 30 to 60 seconds. Watch carefully as smaller tomatoes will need less time; you don't want the tomatoes to start cooking. You'll know the tomatoes are ready to be removed when the flesh starts to wrinkle, and the skin starts to peel away from the flesh.
Generally, homemade tomato sauce will last for three to five days; however, as long as it doesn't contain cream or cheese, you can easily freeze it in airtight quart containers. "You can freeze any unused sauce in an airtight container, using within six months for the best quality experience," says Birmingham.
What is Passata? Passata is a type of tomato purée made from fresh, in-season tomatoes that's often used as a base for pasta sauces, soups, stews, and other dishes.
Never refrigerate a tomato, not even after the tomato is ripe. Refrigerating kills the flavor, the nutrients and the texture of Italy's most beloved ingredient.
The salty soil and water in this area give this variety of tomato a flavour rarely matched by other varieties. This tomato is at its best when still shot with green; the perfect Marinda tomatoes has a dark green 'shoulder', a fairly thick, heavily ridged skin with a firm pulp and crunch.”
Use Fresh Tomatoes
Crushed tomatoes are typically made with peeled, seeded, and crushed Roma tomatoes. Using your own fresh tomatoes is a natural substitute for canned crushed tomatoes. Peel your tomatoes, quarter and seed them if desired, then dice the tomatoes up and put them in your food processor.
Whole peeled tomatoes are the thinnest, diced are a little thicker, and crushed are the thickest of all. How to choose the right tomato: For a slow-cooked Bolognese sauce, choose whole peeled tomatoes. The long cooking time will slowly thicken the tomato sauce and break down the pieces.
Tomato skins can be tough and bitter, so it's nice — but not necessary — to remove them from tomatoes to be canned. A ridiculously easy and satisfying method, presuming you have the freezer space, is to seal tomatoes inside food-safe plastic bags in the freezer.
Tomato skins and seeds are harder to digest and they do not cook down like the flesh does and will appear as seeds and strips of skin in your finished product. Blanching loosens the skin so that it can be easily removed.
Homemade Spaghetti Sauce Ingredients
Be sure to peel the tomatoes (and remove the seeds, if you like, but it's not necessary).
As well as being canned, tomatoes can be juiced, puréed and mixed with onions, garlic and basil to make sugi, savoury sauces for pasta and pizzas.