How to Make Pasta Sauce with Dehydrated Tomato Powder

I make pasta sauce with dehydrated tomato powder. Often. Every Friday night, all winter long.

Today I’m breaking down exactly how you can do this too. Well, it doesn’t have to be only on Friday nights of course…

We’ve always had a family pizza night. The days have changed over the years, but the excitement for pizza night never dwindles. We are pretty much pizza fanatics, so that helps.

Sure, we sometimes stop at the little country store in town and pick up a pizza from Sean, but most of the time we make homemade pizza. We prefer it and it’s almost as convenient honestly. No, actually, on a blustery winter night when no one wants to bundle up and go out, or uncover the car out of 6 inches of snow, pizza that we put together in a half and hour in our kitchen is greatly preferred.

I wasn’t a fan of canned pasta sauce

I buy a lot of pasta sauce, because my one attempt at making it myself was awful. I felt chained to the stove for all day… a very long day… and had very few jars of sauce to show for it.

That’s why dehydrated tomatoes changed our family pizza night forever.

I grew a huge variety of tomatoes in my garden last summer and became a dehydrating fanatic when I realized just how amazing pasta sauce is that’s made with dehydrated tomato powder.

Edited to add: Go here for the recipe I use today to make my dehydrated tomato sauce.

I use my dehydrated tomato powder for pizza sauce and tomato paste and pasta sauce. I just vary the amount of water I add to the dehydrated tomato powder so it’s the thickness I want. I’ve also simmered it down to get the desired thickness for sauce, but if you get the water ratio right to begin with, no simmering is needed.

I love that there is zero waste, I can make exactly what I need on any given night.

I always hate that ½-used jar of sauce that takes up valuable space in my fridge. Even worse, the jar gets shoved to the back corner where it is forgotten and later thrown away. None of that if I’m making what I need, when I need it. Score.

What’s the best dehydrator?

I have tried many different dehydrators over the years, trying to save money with lower priced ones. I’ve also dehydrated many herbs by hanging them to air dry and many veggies by spreading them out on baking trays on the dashboard of my car on a hot sunny day.

While there are many ways to dehydrate without fancy equipment, and many lower priced dehydrating machines on the market that are fine, I can tell you I will never go back to any other way now that I have found the top echelon of dehydrators.

Bonuses? It has such a large capacity (yet a small enough footprint to stay in my kitchen all season long) that I save lots of energy. I have to run 4 loads in a cheap dehydrator to equal just one in the Tribest.

This is my dehydrator and I whole heartedly recommend it to anyone who asks.

1. In a bowl, pour water and vinegar over tomato powder and seasoning and stir until dissolved.
2. Add more tomato powder if you want a thicker consistency.
3. Add more spices, herbs, vinegar, or sugar slowly if needed, and keep tasting until it’s just the way you like it.

It’s that simple guys. And no one has to shovel snow to drive to Sean’s store to wait 20 minutes for a pizza that’s half cold when we sit down to eat it.

Yeah, I’m kinda a hero like that.

I talk about my dehydrator, and why I’m in love with it–along with 11 other kitchen tools I’m kinda obsessed with–in this episode of my podcast– 12 Appliances that Make Real Food Convenient

Other articles you’ll love:

How to Make Powder out of Dehydrated Food

All the Ways I Use Dehydrated Tomatoes

Why & How I Mill My Own Fresh Flour for my pizza dough

Tools I Wouldn’t Want to be Without in my Farmhouse Kitchen

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“He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” Psalm 107:9

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