Super quick and easy homemade pasta sauce that you can give to your baby without worrying about the bad ingredients in store-bought pasta sauces. Good for adults too 🙂
Pasta just may be one of the simplest and easiest meals you can make. Just cook some pasta with water, serve with a sauce and you have a nutritious, delicious and quick meal.
And I am yet to meet a baby or toddler that does not eat pasta.
But sometimes pasta sauces can take some time to prepare. Especially if you are like me and like to experiment and spend hours and hours figuring out which one would best go with which pasta type.
However I also have those days when I am in a rush and need to whip something up for lunch or dinner in 10 minutes. And that's where this Quick & Easy Homemade Pasta Sauce really comes in handy.
Boil some water, add the pasta and you can make your sauce before the pasta is ready.
This is perfect for babies as you don't have to worry about any bad ingredients that are usually found in store-bought pasta sauces.
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Nutrition & Ingredients
Tomato Sauce
- I am lucky enough to have homemade tomato sauce from homegrown tomatoes available. Every autumn/fall, a family friend makes batches and batches of homemade tomato sauce and I buy at least 30 liters to store in the pantry until the next year
- Tomatoes are a great source of vitamins C and K as well as a specific nutrient called lycopene. Lycopene is an antioxidant which can be beneficial to the cardiovascular system.
Basil
- I like to use dried basil in this sauce. Firstly because I don't have fresh basil available at all times and secondly because the aroma and taste is not as intense for babies and toddlers
- Although it is used in small amounts, it does provide some amounts of vitamin K and some antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties
How To Make An Easy Homemade Pasta Sauce
Boil the tomato sauce. Put the tomato sauce into a pot with the water and bring to a boil over medium heat.
Cook the sauce. Lower the heat but it should be high enough to keep the mixture at a simmer. Add the basil. If making for babies over 1 and adults, add date syrup and salt and continue to cook for 10 minutes. Do not cover the pot.
Cool and serve. After 10 minutes, take off the stove and allow to cool a bit before mixing with the pasta.
Tips & Tricks For The Perfect Sauce
Use homemade tomato sauce. I really cannot stress enough how much of a difference it makes when you use homemade tomato sauce. However, I do realize that not everyone has that available and some need to manage with what they have. So my suggestion would be either to make your own sauce from fresh and seasonal tomatoes in the summer and then freeze to use in sauces like these or to buy an organic one with no added ingredients other than the tomatoes.
Don't overdo it with the seasonings. It took me a while to find the perfect balance of the basil, sweetness and salt for this sauce. But I can say that I am pretty satisfied with this one. You might ask yourselves why I am using sweetener in a tomato pasta sauce. The reason is that a sweetener is usually added to tomato purees when cooking because it neutralizes the natural sour tomato taste. You can use whatever natural sweetener you like (just don't use honey for babies under 1).
Add it to hot pasta. To really give the pasta and sauce the possibility to blend, you need to add the sauce to the pasta while it is still hot. So once you drain the pasta immediately mix it with the sauce. That way the natural starches from the pasta will blend with the sauce to make it even creamier.
Possible Pasta Sauce Variations
Season it to your own liking. This sauce has so few ingredients that it is quite hard to add any variations to it. However one of those might be to season the sauce to your own liking. This might mean that if you find it being to sweet you would add less sweetener or omit it if you like the sour tomato taste. Also if you find it is too much basil for your liking (or too little) you can adjust it for you and your family. With the salt, I wouldn't recommend you go overboard as for this amount of 300ml a pinch is more than enough.
Other Recipes for Babies
Quick & Easy Pasta Sauce
Ingredients
- 7 oz canned/homemade crushed tomatoes 200 ml
- 1.7 oz water 50 ml
- ½ teaspoon basil
Add for babies over 1 and adults
- ¾ teaspoon date syrup or any other sweetener
- pinch salt
Instructions
- Put the tomato sauce into a pot with the water and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- Lower the heat but it should be high enough that the tomato-water sauce simmers.
- Add the basil, sweetener and salt and continue to cook for 10 minutes. Do not cover the pot.
- After 10 minutes, take off the stove and allow to cool a bit before mixing with the pasta.
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