Five Minute Tomato Sauce

Tomato sauce is considered a super food. Lycopene is found in cooked tomatoes and it's known to prevent a whole host of illnesses. I love it when a recipe is both delicious and nutritious, not to mention super easy. I was on the lookout for a quick tomato sauce recipe since my usual standby takes a couple of hours to make. This is a wonderful basic tomato sauce that I adapted from 101 Cookbooks, one of the best food blogs out there. I couldn't believe when reading the recipe that it could actually be so good. In fact while the tomatoes were in the pan, I found myself instinctively reaching for a bay leaf and dried herbs. I couldn't resist adding the sugar though, it's one thing in a tomato sauce that I refuse to exclude.

This tomato sauce is the best. Since I first tried it, I've never made it any other way. The lemon imparts such a brightness to the sauce and I love the kick of the red pepper flakes. They say you should eat tomato sauce a couple of times a week and when it takes as much time to make as opening a jar from the supermarket, there's really no excuse not to.

RECIPE adapted from 101 Cookbooks:
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 medium cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 TBS sugar
zest of one lemon

In a cold saucepan combine olive oil, red pepper flakes and garlic. Heat the oil to medium high and stir constantly for about 45 seconds, making sure the garlic doesn't burn. Reduce the heat to medium low and add the crushed tomatoes to the olive oil mixture along with the salt and sugar. Simmer the sauce for about 5 minutes, remove from heat and add the grated lemon zest.