In this brief guide, we’ll address the search query: “How do you make tomato paste into tomato sauce?” Also, we’ll explore how tomato paste is made, how our readers can come by tomato paste, and what happens to tomatoes when they’re cooked.
How do you make tomato paste into tomato sauce?
Tomato sauce is made by cooking tomato paste with ingredients such as spices, seasonings, oil, and other ingredients. This can be done in a pot or a pan, and there are various recipes for tomato sauce that our readers can consult to find one that suits their taste.
Tomato paste can be storebought or homemade, though the former often include additives such as salt and other ingredients as preservatives. Tomato paste can be made at home by boiling tomatoes and then blending or mashing them and then storing them at subzero temperatures to maximize their shelf life.
Alternatively, tomato paste can be used immediately to make a sauce or stored in refrigeration (short-term) for later use.
Similarly, tomato sauce can be homemade or store-bought. However, each brand has its own recipe and formulation. Therefore they each prepare tomato paste with different additives and seasonings. Homemade tomato sauce has the advantage of granting the reader control of what spices and consistency they desire.
To summarize, tomato sauce can be made by mixing tomato paste with seasonings and spices, per a recipe’s guidelines, and cooking it briefly in a pan or pot.
How is tomato paste made?
Tomato paste is made by cooking fresh tomatoes–they can be blanched, or thoroughly boiled for a few minutes before they’re cooled down and blended into a paste.
Cooking the tomatoes is essential to make the paste, as it denatures the proteins in the flesh and decreases the aqueous phase of the tomatoes.
Once the tomatoes have been blended, they can be stored either in refrigeration (in a Tupperware style container) or they can be flash frozen, and preserved for months. Some readers may opt to store them in heavy-duty freezer bags, while others more adept at the craft of preserves may prefer to store them in boiled and tightly sealed mason jars.
On an industrial scale, once the tomato paste has been made, it is portioned into boiled jars that are covered, boiled, and then tightly sealed to guarantee that the product is sterile and free of noxious microbes.
How can I come by tomato paste?
As we’ve mentioned above, tomato paste can be homemade or store-bought. Each has its advantages, which readers will have to weigh and decide which suits their needs best.
If our readers occasionally make dishes with tomato paste, it may be in their interest to use storebought, jarred, or tinned tomato paste. Though they should take pause and take careful note of the nutritional statement printed on the packaging.
This is because often, processed foods are high in sodium and preservatives, which may have detrimental effects if consumed regularly.
Alternatively, if our readers wish to exercise greater control over the amount of salt that goes into the sauces and other foods they’ll use their tomato paste to make, they may benefit more from homemade tomato paste.
We encourage our readers to be mindful of their nutritional needs and whenever possible, consume processed foods sparingly.
What happens to tomatoes when they’re cooked?
When tomatoes are cooked, they undergo chemical and physical changes that alter their consistency and nutritional content.
Namely, cooking tomatoes decreases their concentration of ascorbic acid (vitamin C). The more time tomatoes are cooked, the more their concentration of vitamin C is decreased.
However, cooking can increase the concentrations of other bioactive compounds such as lycopene, which is the pigment that gives tomatoes their characteristic, bright red coloring.
Also, proteins in the tomatoes’ flesh are denatured and broken down into smaller molecules.
In short, our readers should take into account what benefits they wish to reap from their tomatoes, as cooked tomatoes can provide higher concentrations of antioxidants, whereas fresh tomatoes can provide rich amounts of vitamin C.
Conclusion
In this brief guide, we’ve addressed the search query: “How do you make tomato paste into tomato sauce?” Also, we’ve explored how tomato paste is made, how our readers can come by tomato paste, and what happens to tomatoes when they’re cooked.