Made using a combination of tomato, garlic, soffritto and basil, Italian sauce is a staple in… Well, Italian cuisine! It makes for the base of a range of pasta dishes as well as meat sauces.
Italian sauce is essentially a basic sauce with a tomato base and is easy enough to make from scratch. But if you’re not an avid chef or have simply run out of jarred Italian sauce, what can you use instead?
Our 4 Substitutes for Italian Sauce
Italian sauce’s sweet, refreshing flavours come from its tomato base and basil seasoning. These are the elements we need to replicate.
Here are our 4 top substitutes for Italian sauce:
1) Red Pepper Puree
When using a red pepper puree to replace Italian sauce, it will have a much smoother texture because of the production process where it will often be sieved.
Because it uses a red pepper base instead of tomato, red pepper puree is the perfect substitute for anyone with a tomato allergy or a dislike of the tomato flavour. You will still get the sweet, refreshing flavours of an Italian sauce just more suited for your dietary needs.
Red pepper puree usually pairs basil and garlic to highlight the red pepper’s flavours in the same way as in Italian sauce. So, the puree and sauce will be very similar in flavour.
If you want to replicate the flavour of Italian sauce exactly, add your own onions and carrots to the puree when you add the garlic and basil. The taste will be practically indistinguishable.
Skip the Sieving
If you are following a red pepper puree recipe to make your own puree, then you could always skip the straining step to make the texture more similar to Italian sauce.
2) Tinned Tomatoes and Herbs
The combination of canned tomatoes and herbs is extremely cost-effective and is a very easy substitution to make when you are short on time.
Canned whole tomatoes come submerged in liquid, but it is the tomatoes themselves that you will need to use to replicate the flavour of Italian sauce. Before you add any herbs, separate the liquid but keep hold of it.
Use a blender – or a masher if you don’t have a blender – to break up the tomatoes until they start to resemble a chunky sauce. Add your herbs of choice and seasoning, mixing together until combined.
Heat up some onion and garlic in a pan, then add your tomatoes blend and cook until hot.
If you find the sauce too thin, you will need to cook it down until some of the water has evaporated. Or, if your sauce is too thick, then add in some of the leftover liquid from the can. The liquid will add some extra flavour instead of diluting the flavours as water would.
Keep It Simple
Tip a tin of tomatoes, a handful of picked basil leaves, three whole cloves of garlic and a pinch of salt and pepper into a sauce, bring it to a boil, stir then reduce the heat to low for 1 hour.
3) Tomato Paste and Water
Italian sauce is full of flavour, which is why it is so widely used. In comparison, the combination of tomato paste and water lacks any real flavour.
The paste itself is made from tomatoes that have been cooked for hours on end, eventually reducing to a thick paste. It has a very concentrated tomato flavour but lacks any additional ingredients.
Adding water to the paste helps to thin out the thick paste. Still, it dilutes a lot of that tomato concentrate, leaving a neutral base.
You could throw some basil, onion and garlic into the mix to make the combination resemble Italian sauce better.
Season to Taste
Tomato puree and water will be quite one-dimensional so make sure you season it with salt, pepper and even sugar if you need to balance out the flavours.
4) Fresh Tomatoes
Nothing will beat the fresh taste of Italian sauce like fresh tomatoes. However, to turn fresh tomatoes into something that resembles Italian sauce will take a bit more effort than other substitutes.
While store-bought fresh tomatoes will have some seeds, there will be considerably less than in canned tomatoes and they will also be less watery.
This will make getting a smoother, thicker sauce easier without any additional steps.
Using fresh tomatoes to make a basic Italian sauce means that you will know exactly what is going into your dish, making it a great substitute if you are trying to be more health-conscious.
Simply peel and mash the tomatoes and add some garlic, onion and basil into the mix. Then heat up the mixture until it resembles the texture of Italian sauce.
Blanch Them
Tomato skins can ruin the texture of a proper Italian sauce so blanch the tomatoes beforehand to make peeling them far easier.
Other Substitutes for Italian Sauce
The above substitutes while easy, do require a little effort on your part to resemble Italian sauce. But here are a few very easy substitutes you could use instead:
- Ketchup – Purests, look away now! Everyone has some ketchup in their cupboard. You will need to dilute the acidic sweetness with some water but ketchup is an easy tomato-based substitute.
- Tomato Soup – Usually very flavoursome, tomato soup falls just to the left of tasting like Italian sauce but will still make our dish taste great.
Summary
Italian sauce is a tomato-based sauce, so any substitute that uses tomatoes as a base and has a hint of sweetness will work well. However, surprisingly red pepper puree most resembles the sauce and is an allergy-friendly choice.