Around here, we love pizza. It's that one meal that everyone eats without complaint, is easy to make, and has almost no cleanup after. But as we all know, a pizza is only as good as it's sauce. So I scoured the internet for the best sauce possible, and came up disappointed- not because there weren't any tasty looking recipes, there were tons, but every single one of them required more work that I was going to be able make time for. I'm not a fan of the time and mess of blanching, and in the late summer and early fall, you know, when I would actually have fresh tomatoes worthy of such a labor of love, I am not interested in heating up my house by stewing said tomatoes for several hours. I gave up on making a great sauce and so, when my tomatoes ripened in large batches, I decided to try making some dried tomatoes to put on whatever mediocre sauce I had in hopes that it would make up the difference. We had just gotten a smoker and so instead of taking the time to sun dry them, I put them in the smoker. And then forgot about them while doing yard work. I was so bummed when I came back and thought I had ruined them; they didn't look like nice little tomato raisins, they just looked like bad fruit leather. But I didn't want to be wasteful, so I scraped them into a bowl and wondered what to do with the mess. It smelled amazing and it didn't take long for me to decide to blend them up and see where it took me. It turns out, with a little tweaking, accidentally leaving them on the smoker makes for a great sauce that is almost too easy.

Supplies

If a pizza is only as good as it's sauce, then a sauce is only as good as it's ingredients. Whenever possible, use homegrown or farmers market fresh. If that's not an option, just use as fresh as you can get, I promise it makes a difference. The nice thing about this recipe is that it doesn't require sauce tomatoes, so you can use whatever kind you like best; I used black beauties once and the flavor was just as rich as the color; if you don't have a favorite tomato just start with Romas or basic slicing tomatoes and experiment from there.

You will need 4-6 medium sized tomatoes

One yellow onion

1 1/2 heads of garlic, or about 10 cloves

1/2 bell pepper

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Salt to taste

About 1 teaspoon each of fresh basil, oregano, and rosemary, or some dried Italian seasoning if fresh herbs aren't available

A cookie sheet or low sided roasting pan

A blender, or a lot of patience to mash it all up by hand ;)

A smoker or grill set up for smoking

Step 1: Smoke Ingredients

One of the main reasons I like to use the smoker is because the smoke does more than add flavor; aside from changing the PH levels and preserving perishable foods, it breaks down some foods, namely tomato skins, so there is no blanching or peeling needed! Simply wash and remove stems and blemishes, then cut your tomatoes, pepper, onion, and garlic into chunks and spread them out on the cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt and put it all in the smoker for 6-10 hours(the time it takes will depend on how small you cut your ingredients, how juicy your tomatoes are, and how thick you want your sauce), leaving it on the smoke setting the entire time. When you come back for it, it's going to look dried out and a little yucky- that's ok! If you like a thinner sauce, they are done when they look roasted, about 6 hours, if you like it thick, then they are going to look almost burnt before they are done, up to 10 hours.

If you are doing this in the oven, you will want to remove the skins if that bothers you to have them in your sauce; I don't mind them, but my kids don't love them so much. You will also need to cook them at a higher temperature, the few times I have done this in the oven I did 350F for about an hour and it seemed about right, but I would still keep a close eye on it because we are at a high altitude and that might affect it.

But honestly, try to do it in a smoker, cause that's half the point of this recipe.

Step 2: Blend It Up

Once it is good and smoked, scrape it off the pan with a spatula( it comes off easier than it looks like it will) into a bowl and add the herbs and balsamic vinegar. In small enough batches for your blender, blend it up till it is smooth and has an even consistency, or, if you like chunks then leave it a little chunky.

That's it! Now you can use your sauce on pizza or even pasta, or put it into freezer containers and freeze it for later. This recipe is soooo delicious, especially when you consider how simple it is; there are so many layers and each ingredient gets to take a turn on center stage, but it only takes about 10 minutes of actual hands on work.

Step 3: Variations

As mentioned before, you can try this with any variety of tomato, but why stop there?

I have made this with red onions instead of yellow, and while the difference was subtle, it was still nice.

You can also swap out the bell pepper for something a bit spicier if you like; I haven't tried doing that yet because my kids would not appreciate it, but another option that I have tried and liked, is saving some of the sauce aside and blending some red pepper flakes into it for the grown ups' pizzas.

I have also tried adding the balsamic vinegar before smoking it- I personally did not like it, but some of my friends said they preferred it that way.

This sauce is also good for pasta and as a dip for mozzarella sticks, and I bet it would be a good base for tomato soup, though I haven't tried that yet.

And of course, you can always tweak the ratios. If you are way big into garlic, then go ahead and double it. Not a fan of peppers? leave them out. Wanna try multiple varieties of tomato at once? Go for it. There are many possibilities, and if you try any of them , I'd love to hear about it! Thanks for reading and enjoy!