Smokey Bacon Tomato Sauce
Its always handy having a few jars of this pasta sauce in the fridge or freezer for an emergency dinner. It’s a satisfying meal by itself for your bub or as a side to grilled fish or chicken, when chopped up steamed veggies aren’t going to cut it. Thanks to the bacon this veggie packed sauce is hard to resist, even for the most stubborn.
I use preservative and nitrate free bacon that I get from my local organic butcher. Processed bacon really isn’t great so doing this makes me feel so much better about feeding the kids bacon. While it is more expensive to buy free range, chemical free produce, the bacon in this dish really goes the distance and provides for a lot of meals. Just remember to portion out the sauce in lots of small jars or even ice cube trays in the freezer, so you don’t end up defrosting a whole batch of sauce you wont need.
Feel free to use up whatever vegetables you have, pumpkin is great and I’m sure you can sneak in other greens like kale, asparagus and broccoli without any young detective noticing! So don’t feel you have to follow this recipe exactly.
I made this dish when Cooper, who was 14 months at the time, suddenly became the fussiest eater. He was on a hunger strike for over a week. Suddenly all of his old favourite meals were just not going past his lips and self feeding was a must. So gluten free pasta with a healthy sauce was a perfect finger food full of nutrition. As Cooper can flare up with eczema I avoid wheat pasta and opt for brown rice or quinoa pasta.
This sauce broke the hunger strike and we had a victory. He devoured it. Now it’s a regular to have any time of the year, serve warm in winter and cool in the summer, and its great on the go or in school lunch boxes. A favourite recipe for kids that can’t have dairy, wheat or gluten in their diets and trust me with these flavours they wont miss the cheese.
Allergy and recipe information:
- Dairy Free, Wheat Free, Gluten Free, Egg Free, Nut Free.
- Paleo – just add with zucchini noodles for a grain free option
- Vegetarian – omit the bacon
Smokey Bacon Tomato Sauce
15 minutes
35 minutes
1 litres of sauce
Ingredients
- 1 onion diced
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 celery stick diced
- 3 carrots diced
- 1 red pepper diced
- 1 zucchini diced
- 2 tins of diced tomatoes 800g
- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
- ¼ bunch of fresh basil or parsley chopped
- ½ cup of vegetable stock chicken broth or filtered water
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Olive oil or coconut oil for sautéing
- 8 slices bacon (preferably free range, preservative/nitrate free)
Instructions
- Pop your oil in a large saucepan and gently sauté the bacon and onion, until the bacon gets some colour and the onions softened a little.
- Add the garlic, carrot, celery, pepper and zucchini and stir through a couple of minutes.
- Add all the remaining ingredients except for the spinach and parsley and gently bring to a gentle boil, reduce to simmer and cook for about 30 minutes with the lid on until the vegetables are nice and soft.
- Turn off the heat, add the spinach and parsley, check for seasoning and give everything a mix through allowing the leaves to wilt.
- Allow to cool before blitzing with a hand-held blender or food processor until smooth.
- Store in individual portions (glass jars are perfect) in the fridge for a few days or unto three months in the freezer.
Recipe Notes
Allergies: Dairy Free, Wheat Free, Gluten Free, Egg Free, Nut Free. Vegetarian. Paleo.
