Marinara sauce (in a slow cooker or on the hob)

Prep list

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Script

Andrea: Hello, my name is Andrea and I'm a qualified chef working at Greenwich Pantry, a social enterprise that teaches cookery skills. In this video I'll show you how to make a marinara or tomato sauce. It is a sauce you can cook ahead of time and freeze, then just heat up when you need it. You can use it for a simple pasta dish or use it to make something more involved, like a lasagna. It’s one of those useful things to have in your freezer for when you don’t really feel like cooking. I’ll show you how to make it in a slow cooker, but you can also make it on the hob. Joining me today is [Stroke Assoc].

[Stroke Assoc]: Hello everyone and hello Andrea.

Andrea: The prep for this recipe will probably take between 10-15 minutes. If you’re cooking in a slow cooker, the cooking time will be between 4 to 8 hours. On the hob, it will be more like an hour or two.

The ingredients are listed in the video description below. But you can see we have an onion, some garlic, and a tin of chopped tomatoes. Then we have our seasoning, so some tomato puree, olive oil, basil, oregano, brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, and a bit of salt.

You’ll need a large saucepan with a lid or a slow cooker, a wooden spoon or something to stir with, some measuring spoons, a tin opener, a knife and a chopping board.

We’ll start by finely chopping the onion and garlic. The goal is to make this as small as you can. Don’t worry though if it isn’t as finely chopped as this. We’re going to cook this for a good long while, so it will reduce a bit.

[Stroke Assoc]: We had a few questions from stroke survivors during our planning stages about their difficulties with chopping, can you recommend anything to help?

Andrea: With this recipe, and really anything that is turning into a sauce, you can leave these bits bigger if you like. Or you can always use a blender at the end to smooth everything out. It’s really down to what you want the consistency of the sauce to be.

Now we just add those straight to our slow cooker or pan. This should not be on yet.

Next we add everything else. So the tin of chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, the herbs, sugar, balsamic vinegar and butter. And give it all a good stir.

You can add some salt or a low salt alternative now, but you don’t have to. I’m going to add a few chilli flakes instead, just for the added flavour.

[Stroke Assoc]: Chilli instead of salt? Not hear of that one before!

Andrea: It’s a good option when you just want to enhance the flavour of something you’re cooking, rather than making it actually salty.

Then it’s time to let it cook. On a slow cooker, you can go with a low heat for eight hours or a high heat for four. If you’re cooking it on the hob, I’d heat it up to simmering and then turn it down and cook for at least an hour. Just come in a stir occasionally.

[Stroke Assoc]: We had a comment from a stroke survivor during the planning stages of this project.

They said that their slow cooker, quote, “…restored my ability to cook as somebody who is very wobbly on their feet, unable to feel heat on my left side and uncoordinated/clumsy with my left hand. I can now dump and go. Just pointing out that a 'gadget' gave me back an ability (cooking) that I desperately missed.“

Andrea: That’s really nice to hear actually. These kinds of “time saving” devices can really be so much more than that for anyone struggling with fatigue or dexterity.

Feel free to come back and taste occasionally as well, that will tell you if you need to add any black pepper or other seasoning.

Once you’ve finished cooking, you can either use it immediately or store it for later. Either pop it into the fridge or the freezer. You can split it up into batches and use it for individual lunches, if that’s something you like to do.

[Stroke Assoc]: It feels like another good one to scale up if you’ve got the freezer space.

Andrea: Yeah, it’s a really useful one to have on hand for those days when you just don’t feel like cooking.

I’ve boiled a bit of gnocchi here and I’m just going to stir a couple of spoons of the sauce through. A little cheese on the top and I’ve got a quick hot lunch.

[Stroke Assoc]: And that’s our basic tomato sauce. Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried it out yourself or if you have any questions.

Please like the video and subscribe to our channel if you want to see more content like this. Thanks for watching.