Bia Kid recipe for pasta / pizza sauce
This is a fantastically versatile sauce and is packed full of vitamins and minerals, particularly vitamins A and C. It forms the basis for Bia Kid pasta dishes and can be made very easily at home.
Ingredients
- 20ml / 2 tbsp / Olive Oil
- 40 grammes / ½ small onion, finely chopped or processed in a blender
- 2.5 grammes / 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 60 grammes / 1 de-seeded red pepper, chopped
- 400 grammes chopped tomatoes (tinned is perfect!)
- 5 grammes / ½ tbsp tomato puree
- 5 grammes / ½ tbsp sun-dried tomato paste (or 1 or 2 chopped sundried tomatoes)
- ½ gramme / ½ tbsp fresh basil (or 1 tsp dried)
- 4 grammes /1 tsp raw brown cane sugar (the less processed the better - added to take the "tang" out of the vegetables)
Cooking instructions
- Over a medium heat fry the onion in the olive oil for 5 minutes until softened.
- Add garlic and stir for one minute.
- Add the pepper, tomatoes, tomato puree, sun-dried tomato paste, basil and sugar
- Simmer for 15 mins or until vegetables softened and sauce thickened
- Puree or process until smooth
Allow the sauce to thicken naturally to avoid having to add a thickening agent like wheat or corn flour. You could always add one of these if you are in a hurry.
We puree the sauce as I found at home and in my research for Bia Kid that children generally don't like lumps. The consistency of the sauce is such that it then sticks to the pasta, so even if your children eat the pasta they are getting all of the goodness of the vegetables and herbs.
I make it in big batches at home and freeze in individual tubs, so that I always have a nutritious, tasty sauce to add to chicken, tuna (children need to eat more oily fish), ham or a few vegetables with pasta or use it to make home made pizzas with my daughter, Saoirse.
- Yvonne Scully