The Easiest Way to Make Winter Tomato Sauce More Summery
Apart from my birthday, tomatoes are my favorite thing in summer. They are sweet. They are sharp. They are juicy. They form the basis of my favorite sandwich. It’s impossible to replicate the taste of seasonal tomatoes in the dead of winter, but you can make your winter tomato sauces taste a little brighter and a little sunnier with a common kitchen product.
According to Food52 , cookbook author Heidi Swanson uses lemon zest to give her sauce a summery vibe. According to Swanson, the zest “brings the tomatoes to life without making them more sour or even noticeably citric.”
Tomatoes already have a fair amount of acid, as do lemons (obviously), but lemon zest doesn’t. The zest smells and tastes like a heady, aromatic memory of a lemon, without any sourness, and the citrus is at its best in the middle of winter (which is now).
Swanson uses the zest of a whole lemon in her 5-Minute Tomato Sauce , a recipe that includes a few other good tips like adding garlic to a cold pan and using crushed tomatoes, which are basically sauce already. You should try her recipe, but you can use the brightening power of lemon zest in any sauce (or rich tomato stew) you like. Stick to the zest of one lemon for every 28 ounces of canned tomatoes, leaving a little to sprinkle on for a fun side dish. If, however, you have picky eaters who don’t like the look of lemon in their sauce, just mix it all up. (Which I’m sure they’ll appreciate given how cold and nasty the weather was).