I wasn’t sure where to post this. There aren’t a lot of recipes online for homemade yellow marinara, and this is delicious enough I wanted to share it. I thought about posting on one of the cooking subs, but those are annoyingly infested with trolls, and I figure y’all would appreciate the obsession if nothing else. Ingredients lists are at the bottom.
I must begin with a shoutout to Food Wishes’ u/allrecipes Chef John, as this recipe was heavily inspired by his homemade marinara sauce (which is fantastic in its unaltered form).
Step 1: Yellow Tomato Paste
I took about 12 pounds of yellow tomatoes – mostly Yellow Patio Choice, with a few Golden Bison mixed in – and tossed those into a big stockpot. Most of these were actually from last fall and had been frozen; I let them thaw and drained off the released liquid (that “12 pounds” was the pre freeze weight). I cooked them for about an hour and a half until they were well broken down. I let them cool to my personal point of “safe enough to work with”, then transferred them to my blender (note, I have a pretty powerful blender which I think is pretty necessary for this method) and blended them up really thoroughly (seeds, skins and all) for about 5 minutes per batch, until I was sure no discernable pieces remained. I transferred the results to a 9×13 glass casserole dish and baked at 225F, stirring every hour so the drier stuff on the edges got mixed back in and didn’t overcook. I also used a plastic spatula and ran it along the edges to make sure nothing was sticking, and folded that back in as well.
I could’ve saved myself some oven time had I cooked them longer on the stove, but the oven is pretty much guaranteed not to get scorched or stuck to the bottom with a once an hour stir, and the liquid does all cook off eventually. The oven step took about 5 hours.
Once the paste was pasty enough for my liking, I let it cool on the countertop, then scooped it into very ugly balls onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Each ball is probably about 3 tablespoons. I froze that; once everything was frozen I transferred the ugly balls into a plastic bag and kept them in my freezer.
Step 2: Yellow Tomato Sauce
I started with about 18 pounds of tomatoes (mostly yellow but I had a handful (less than 5%) of reds that I needed to use up or freeze, so I tossed ’em in). These were primarily Yellow Patio Choice, Golden Bison, and Sunrise Sauce, with a handful of BHN871G’s thrown in. The cherries were just tossed in; the larger tomatoes I cut into chunks first. I removed all the green stems, and did cut the cores out of the larger tomatoes since I was cutting them up anyway. I cooked these for about an hour and judged that close enough. The tomatoes were decently broken down and workable.
I passed everything through my food mill to remove the skins and seeds. I just have a hand crank model but this step didn’t take long. At that point I had a very watery tomato sauce. I set that over medium heat and cooked it for another 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes or so, while I did other kitchen chores.
Note: Would this (both the sauce and the paste) have been easier with paste tomatoes instead of cherries? Yes, absolutely, but cherries were what I had (and I had a lot of them) and they worked just fine. Yellow Patio Choice has a spectacular flavor. I’m still on the hunt for the “best” yellow paste tomato; sunrise sauce is doing decently but doesn’t impress me anywhere close to as much as YPC does.
Step 3: Yellow Marinara
I grabbed two leeks out of my garden and cut off the top green sections, cleaned them up and roughly diced them. I put these into my food processor and turned them into puree (I really hate discernable chunks of vegetables in my marinara; a fine dice would’ve been fine for normal people). I put half a cup of olive oil in my warm stock pot, then added the pureed leeks and a good dash of salt. I let those cook, stirring frequently, then remembered I had two yellow zucchini in my fridge. I’d already disassembled and washed my food processor, so I just peeled the yellow zucchinis and then grated them into the stockpot. I let that cook for about 10-15 minutes over medium-low heat, until all of the moisture had cooked off. Note, the pureed/grated ingredients very quickly go from “cooking off moisture” to “oh hi, I’m going to burn” so watch it especially carefully when you get to that point, if you use that technique.
I took 1 bulb of minced garlic and tossed that in and cooked for about 30 seconds. I added 2 teaspoons of white wine vinegar and let that cook off, then 4 teaspoons white sugar, 2 teaspoons anchovy paste, 2 teaspoons dried oregano, a good shake of ground thyme (maybe 1/4 a teaspoon?), and 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes. I let all of those things cook for about 2 minutes, stirring pretty much constantly to keep them from burning.
Note: I am a spice wimp. That amount of red pepper flakes is variable, but I would say 1 tablespoon is the minimum at this ratio. Otherwise the marinara is just blandly sweet and boring.
I then added one of my ~3 tablespoon balls of tomato paste and let that cook in and fully meld. I gave it about 5 minutes to toast some more and get to know the ingredients. Note, this probably would’ve turned out just fine with normal canned red tomato paste, but if you haven’t guessed, I’m a little obsessive.
Finally it was time to add my tomato sauce. It was about 10 cups’ worth at this point, but the amount isn’t critical as you’ll be cooking it down a lot more anyway.
Then it was just a waiting game until the marinara cooked down to my desired thickness. I let it cook for about 1 hour uncovered, then gave it another 45 minutes on a low simmer, mostly covered, because I still had to make the stuffed shells mixture.
ICUlimp-o-nent
Only difference between yellow and red tomatoes is the ripeness /color of the skin so why remove the skin if you r. Calling it yellow marinara but hey if its fresh tomato sauce I’m sure its great it’s hard to mess up when nice fresh tomatoes cooked down
2 Comments
I wasn’t sure where to post this. There aren’t a lot of recipes online for homemade yellow marinara, and this is delicious enough I wanted to share it. I thought about posting on one of the cooking subs, but those are annoyingly infested with trolls, and I figure y’all would appreciate the obsession if nothing else. Ingredients lists are at the bottom.
I must begin with a shoutout to Food Wishes’ u/allrecipes Chef John, as this recipe was heavily inspired by his homemade marinara sauce (which is fantastic in its unaltered form).
Step 1: Yellow Tomato Paste
I took about 12 pounds of yellow tomatoes – mostly Yellow Patio Choice, with a few Golden Bison mixed in – and tossed those into a big stockpot. Most of these were actually from last fall and had been frozen; I let them thaw and drained off the released liquid (that “12 pounds” was the pre freeze weight). I cooked them for about an hour and a half until they were well broken down. I let them cool to my personal point of “safe enough to work with”, then transferred them to my blender (note, I have a pretty powerful blender which I think is pretty necessary for this method) and blended them up really thoroughly (seeds, skins and all) for about 5 minutes per batch, until I was sure no discernable pieces remained. I transferred the results to a 9×13 glass casserole dish and baked at 225F, stirring every hour so the drier stuff on the edges got mixed back in and didn’t overcook. I also used a plastic spatula and ran it along the edges to make sure nothing was sticking, and folded that back in as well.
I could’ve saved myself some oven time had I cooked them longer on the stove, but the oven is pretty much guaranteed not to get scorched or stuck to the bottom with a once an hour stir, and the liquid does all cook off eventually. The oven step took about 5 hours.
Once the paste was pasty enough for my liking, I let it cool on the countertop, then scooped it into very ugly balls onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Each ball is probably about 3 tablespoons. I froze that; once everything was frozen I transferred the ugly balls into a plastic bag and kept them in my freezer.
Step 2: Yellow Tomato Sauce
I started with about 18 pounds of tomatoes (mostly yellow but I had a handful (less than 5%) of reds that I needed to use up or freeze, so I tossed ’em in). These were primarily Yellow Patio Choice, Golden Bison, and Sunrise Sauce, with a handful of BHN871G’s thrown in. The cherries were just tossed in; the larger tomatoes I cut into chunks first. I removed all the green stems, and did cut the cores out of the larger tomatoes since I was cutting them up anyway. I cooked these for about an hour and judged that close enough. The tomatoes were decently broken down and workable.
I passed everything through my food mill to remove the skins and seeds. I just have a hand crank model but this step didn’t take long. At that point I had a very watery tomato sauce. I set that over medium heat and cooked it for another 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes or so, while I did other kitchen chores.
Note: Would this (both the sauce and the paste) have been easier with paste tomatoes instead of cherries? Yes, absolutely, but cherries were what I had (and I had a lot of them) and they worked just fine. Yellow Patio Choice has a spectacular flavor. I’m still on the hunt for the “best” yellow paste tomato; sunrise sauce is doing decently but doesn’t impress me anywhere close to as much as YPC does.
Step 3: Yellow Marinara
I grabbed two leeks out of my garden and cut off the top green sections, cleaned them up and roughly diced them. I put these into my food processor and turned them into puree (I really hate discernable chunks of vegetables in my marinara; a fine dice would’ve been fine for normal people). I put half a cup of olive oil in my warm stock pot, then added the pureed leeks and a good dash of salt. I let those cook, stirring frequently, then remembered I had two yellow zucchini in my fridge. I’d already disassembled and washed my food processor, so I just peeled the yellow zucchinis and then grated them into the stockpot. I let that cook for about 10-15 minutes over medium-low heat, until all of the moisture had cooked off. Note, the pureed/grated ingredients very quickly go from “cooking off moisture” to “oh hi, I’m going to burn” so watch it especially carefully when you get to that point, if you use that technique.
I took 1 bulb of minced garlic and tossed that in and cooked for about 30 seconds. I added 2 teaspoons of white wine vinegar and let that cook off, then 4 teaspoons white sugar, 2 teaspoons anchovy paste, 2 teaspoons dried oregano, a good shake of ground thyme (maybe 1/4 a teaspoon?), and 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes. I let all of those things cook for about 2 minutes, stirring pretty much constantly to keep them from burning.
Note: I am a spice wimp. That amount of red pepper flakes is variable, but I would say 1 tablespoon is the minimum at this ratio. Otherwise the marinara is just blandly sweet and boring.
I then added one of my ~3 tablespoon balls of tomato paste and let that cook in and fully meld. I gave it about 5 minutes to toast some more and get to know the ingredients. Note, this probably would’ve turned out just fine with normal canned red tomato paste, but if you haven’t guessed, I’m a little obsessive.
Finally it was time to add my tomato sauce. It was about 10 cups’ worth at this point, but the amount isn’t critical as you’ll be cooking it down a lot more anyway.
Then it was just a waiting game until the marinara cooked down to my desired thickness. I let it cook for about 1 hour uncovered, then gave it another 45 minutes on a low simmer, mostly covered, because I still had to make the stuffed shells mixture.
Only difference between yellow and red tomatoes is the ripeness /color of the skin so why remove the skin if you r. Calling it yellow marinara but hey if its fresh tomato sauce I’m sure its great it’s hard to mess up when nice fresh tomatoes cooked down