I have high blood pressure so, for me, it is very important to keep the salt intake low and both Mark and I try to keep our weight in check. The last thing we want to do is spend money on clothes because ours have stopped fitting. There are much better things in life to spend our hard earned dollars on...
Today I am going to share with you my recipe for my home made meat sauce which I made a batch of just last week. I may even throw in my cheese sauce recipe at the bottom although I don't have any pictures of the cheese sauce at the moment.
I think the part I love the most about making home made sauces like this is the prep pulling everything together - browning the meat, chopping up the tomatoes, tasting it to adjust the seasonings, etc...all of these steps are a chance to add flavour, play with the final outcome and create something truly satisfying.
For this batch of sauce I used field tomatoes for the recipe but Plum tomatoes work just as well. Pretty much any type of tomato that looks good in the supermarket that is a reasonable price will work for this recipe.
I like to add a little bit of lemon zest to the tomatoes - it lifts the flavour of the beef and the tomatoes and gives it another dimension. If you do not have a zester itself, take a vegetable peeler and peel off a couple of large strips of lemon peel and then finely cut them into strips like below.
I do recommend using extra lean ground beef when making this recipe - lean or medium ground beef throws off too much fat I find and then you'll be draining that off for what seems like forever instead of making your sauce.
Once this has started to come together, it is time to add the liquids. I use a combination of red wine and low sodium beef stock when I make this sauce along with a few other seasonings. It is this combination that makes the house start to smell so yummy, especially since once you have added this in, you just let the mixture sit and work its magic for a couple of hours.
Homemade Meat Sauce
4 (large) Field
tomatoes, chopped into chunks
1 (large) Lemon,
zest and juice of
2 tsp Salt,
divided
2 tsp Pepper,
divided
3 lbs Extra
lean ground beef
3 tbsp Greek
seasoning
3 tbsp Onion
flakes
3 tbsp Sundried
Tomato & Herb seasoning
1 ½ cups White wine
¼ cup Worcestershire
sauce
8-10 dashes Hot sauce (I
used Tabasco)
2 cups Red wine
7 ½ cups Low Sodium
Beef Broth
Start by chopping up your tomatoes into large chunks and put them aside
into a mixing bowl. Next, zest your lemon
and then cut the lemon in half to squeeze the juice out. If you do not have a zester, take your
vegetable peeler and cut off strips of lemon peel and then chop into small
slivers. Add the zest to the tomatoes
and then squeeze the juice of the lemon over the tomatoes. Add 1 tsp each salt and pepper to the bowl
and then toss the tomatoes and lemon in the salt and pepper.
Now it’s time to brown the ground beef.
Add all of the ground beef to a large stock pot and cook it over medium
heat until completely browned. Drain the
fat from the meat and return the meat to the stock pot.
Return the meat to the heat and add the rest of the salt and pepper as
well as the Greek seasoning, Onion flakes, Sundried Tomato and Herb seasoning,
White Wine, Worcestershire sauce and Hot sauce.
Cook for 5 minutes and then taste the meat to see if there is enough
seasoning and flavour to it.
Adjust the seasonings as necessary and then add in your tomato
mixture. Put the lid on the pot and
lower the heat down to medium low. Let
it cook and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring once or twice, until the tomatoes
start to break down.
Now add in your red wine and beef broth. This is why you need to have a large stock
pot as, at this point, there is going to be a lot of liquid. Turn the heat up to medium high, cover the
stock pot with the lid once more and let this go. Check on it every 30-45 minutes and give it a
good stir but it is going to take about 2 hours for a lot of this liquid to
reduce.
Once the sauce is ready, I divide it between freezer proof containers,
let it cool down to room temperature and then put it away in the freezer.
Makes 10 cups
As an alternative – if you want to hold aside some of this sauce and
keep it going for another 30-45 minutes at the same heat and keep it going
until all the liquid is gone. This makes
an amazing topper on nachos or for tacos when all of the liquid is gone.
This was taken when the sauce had reduced by about half. If you look at the orange line near the top of the stock pot, that was where it originally started. Now, like I promised earlier, I am also going to share my homemade cheese sauce recipe with you. When I make this next I will take some photos and share them with you here.
Made from Scratch Cheese Sauce
2 tbsp All
purpose flour
2 tbsp Margarine
PINCH Salt
PINCH Pepper
3 cups Milk
1 ½ cups Low Sodium
Chicken Broth
6-8 dashes Hot sauce
1 cup Parmesan
cheese, grated
2 cups Swiss
cheese, shredded
2 cups Old
cheddar cheese, shredded
In a large saucepan, combine the flour and margarine over medium heat
and stir until butter is melted and completely incorporated into the flour.
Add salt and pepper.
As the roux is just starting to brown, with a whisk, stir in chicken broth
and milk.
Stirring constantly, let this mixture come together and start to
thicken, about 5-7 minutes.
At this point, switch from a whisk to a wooden spoon.
Add in the cheeses in the order listed, stirring after each cheese is
added, until it is incorporated fully.
It is important to stir this regularly so that it does not stick to the
bottom of the pan and burn. The sauce is
ready when it is thickened and coats the back of the wooden spoon.
Makes 4 cups
