Pressure cooker marinara sauce recipe

Pressure cooker, one step marinara sauce is something you must have in your fridge all the time if you want to make some quick meals a few times a week.

Marinara sauce is a multipurpose sauce that can be used to make pasta, to slather a pizza base or even for making sandwiches and rolls when you just want some home made food on the go. You can make this sauce chunky or blend it to make smooth to your liking and it will be your multipurpose tomato sauce with whatever food you want to pair it with.

Imagine if you blend this marinara sauce really smooth in your blender and keep refrigerated, it will be your ketchup, your dip for fries, crackers or breadsticks and of course a quick pasta too.

In fact for pasta meals this one step pressure cooker marinara sauce sauce gets ready in the time your pasta takes to cook. Trust me when I cook for 2-4 people this pressure cooker marinara gets ready in just 10 minutes and that’s a huge blessing when one wants to eat healthy food cooked from scratch.

I have used this simple marinara with cooked pearl barley, grilled chicken, grilled fish or even roasted potatoes or in boiled eggs salad. Whenever I have to make fresh marinara sauce for a quick meal, I try and make a little extra so it lasts me for one more meal or a snack. You get the drift.

But one thing to ensure if you plan to make this simple pressure cooker marinara sauce, that the tomatoes you are using should be the best tasting tomatoes. I usually avoid making this marinara sauce when I don’t have good tomatoes in my pantry. In fact I don’t use tomatoes in my cooking at all if I don’t have good tomatoes.

Yes, many of my readers keep saying that most my recipes, especially the ones from banaraskakhana blog, are so easily cooked without tomatoes and taste so good. In fact I believe in making the main vegetables to taste good on its own and not get drowned in multiple ingredients and in this case, for marinara sauce it should be tomatoes.

That’s the reason in this pressure cooker marinara sauce recipe I don’t even use onions. And it helps cut down the cooking time too because chopping onions is additional 5 minutes to the process. If you want to avoid chopping garlic you can use garlic powder or garlic granules or flakes.

Here is what you do when cooking this pressure cooker marinara sauce.

Just roughly chop tomatoes and dump in the pressure cooker, mix everything else, place the lid and pressure cook for 5-8 minutes approximately. Let me explain in detail as the recipe is simple but a few key pints to make the recipe easier for you. Else you might end up with burnt sauce or too watery sauce that needs time to reduce over the stove.

Ingredients

1 kilo fully ripe good quality tomatoes
3 tbsp minced garlic or 1 tsp garlic powder, granules or flakes
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dry thyme
1 tsp dry oregano
1 tsp dry parsley
1 tsp dry basil
1 tsp chilli flakes
3-4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Procedure

First of all chop the tomatoes roughly and dump them in the pressure cooker, mix with salt and sugar and let it release some water while you chop the garlic and arrange other ingredients.

Now dump everything else in the pressure cooker. Give it a stir and place the lid of the pressure cooker. Switch the stove on and let it cook on high heat till the whistle blows. Now lower the heat and cook for five more minutes. Switch off the stove and let the pressure cooker come release all pressure so you can open the lid. The sauce will be really mushy by this time.

Take a spatula, ladle or a potato masher and mash the tomatoes, cook for another couple of minutes so the sauce caremalises a bit. You can liquidise the sauce after this but try it in the chunky form once and see how it works for you.

Additions to this basic marinara sauce

You can add chopped olives, capers or fresh herbs if you wish.
Grate some Parmesan if you want to use for pasta or as a dip for your garlic breadsticks.
Add extra garlic flakes on top if you like.
Drizzle more extra virgin olive oil over it if you are using it for making sandwich or for grilled chicken or fish.

Do try this sauce and let me know how it made your life easier and food tastier.

Cheers.