Recipe: Shannon Martinez’s Homemade Passata Is the Pantry Gift That Keeps on Giving

Homemade passata is the gift that keeps on giving. With just four ingredients – ripe tomatoes, water, salt and basil – you can turn one afternoon in the kitchen into jars of sauce that’ll last for months. You’ll have loads to swirl through pasta, use as a sauce base or top pizza whenever you need it. It’s a seasonal ritual that Italians have perfected over generations.

This passata one is from Vegan Italian Food by Shannon Martinez – the pioneering chef-proprietor of Melbourne venues Smith & Daughters and Smith & Deli. The book is full of recipes that are equally big and bold (and, of course, vegan). There’s Martinez’s famous tiramisu, cacio e pepe, lasagne, starters, Italian basics and more. Then there is this punchy tomato sauce.

“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re a hoarder by stashing jars away all year,” Martinez writes. “They won’t complain when you rock up to their house with a box full of passata.”

Shannon Martinez’s passata

Makes approx 5 litres

Ingredients

5kg very ripe tomatoes
250ml water
2 tbsp salt flakes
½ bunch of basil

Method

Sterilise five jars.

Wash the tomatoes well. Using a sharp pointed knife, remove the cores from the tomatoes, then cut in half.

Squeeze the tomatoes over a bowl to remove the seeds and excess liquid.

Add the water to a very large stockpot, followed by the tomatoes. If you don’t have a large enough pot, split the water and tomatoes over two smaller ones.

Cover the pot with a lid and cook the tomatoes over a very low heat, stirring every 5–10 minutes until they become very pulpy. This will take anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes.

Pour the tomato pulp into a large colander in the sink and allow as much excess water to drain out as possible.

Set a large bowl under a moulie, passata machine or passata attachment for a stand mixer and ladle in the cooked tomatoes in batches. Once you have passed all the tomatoes through the mill, collect the skins and any pulp that has not gone into the bowl, and pass it again to make sure you’ve gotten every last drop of tomato goodness out. Stir in the salt.

Line up your sterilised bottles or jars and place a small sprig of basil in each one.

Using a funnel, fill each bottle with the passata, leaving about 2cm of space at the top. Seal tightly with the lid.

Clean out the stockpot and carefully place the bottles in. Cover with water and bring to the boil. Boil for 20 minutes, then turn off the heat and allow the water to cool to room temperature before removing the bottles. If sealed correctly, you can store the bottles in the pantry pretty much indefinitely. Once opened, use within 4 days.

If you don’t want to jar your passata, you can freeze it in containers or resealable bags.

This is an edited extract from Vegan Italian Food: Over 100 Recipes for a Plant-based Feast by Shannon Martinez, published by Hardie Grant Books. Available in stores nationally. Photography by Kristoffer Paulsen.

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