Mexico covered in tomato sauce served at a traditional
fonda restaurant Tomato sauce was an ancient condiment in
Mesoamerican food. The first person to write about what may have been a tomato sauce was
Bernardino de Sahagún, a Spanish
Franciscan friar who later moved to
New Spain, who made note of a prepared sauce that was offered for sale in the markets of
Tenochtitlan (
Mexico City today). He wrote (translated from
Spanish), Basic Mexican tomato sauce was traditionally prepared using a
molcajete to puree the tomatoes. Food that is cooked in tomato sauce is known as
entomatada. Tomato sauce is used as a base for spicy sauces and
moles. Latini was chef to the Spanish viceroy of Naples, and one of his tomato recipes is for sauce "in the Spanish style" (). The first known use of tomato sauce with pasta appears in the Italian cookbook ''L'Apicio moderno'', by the Roman chef
Francesco Leonardi, published in 1790. Tomato sauce can also be served raw, in which case it is named
saoussoun (grated raw tomato with onions, olive oil and herbs), or
sauce vierge (diced raw tomato with olive oil, lemon, garlic, and basil).
Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa Tomato sauce is a popular, commercially produced
table sauce, similar to tomato
ketchup, which is typically applied to foods such as
meat pies,
sausages, and
fish and chips. Tomato sauce tends to be more sour due to taste preference for sour adopted from the English and Europeans; while Americans tend to prefer sweeter flavours with American Ketchup being sweeter and thicker. According to Heinz, Ketchup contains more tomatoes, with Australian Heinz Tomato Ketchup stating that it contains "162g of Tomatoes per 100mL" equating to 77% concentrated tomatoes, while other tomato sauce brands have tomato concentrations (from paste or puree) between 75-85%. Tomato-based sauces served with pasta are commonly referred to as "pasta sauce", and a strained, uncooked tomato purée is called passata.
United Kingdom Collins English Dictionary lists the term as "another name for tomato ketchup" in British English.
Canada and United States and
coriander that may be used in a sauce In Canada and the U.S., tomato sauce is typically sold jarred or canned, with minimal ingredients, and is not normally used as is. Related ingredients are
tomato purée and
tomato paste, each of which is similar but paste has a thicker consistency. Tomato purée and tomato paste have US FDA standards of identity (since 1939) for percentage of tomato solids, and historically did not contain seasonings other than salt; in recent decades variants with basil or other traditional Italian seasonings became common. Tomato sauce is non-standardized.
Tomato gravy Tomato gravy is originally an Italian American term for a tomato sauce cooked with meat, "gravy" being an Americanized form of
ragù. Tomato gravy was associated with Sunday dinner in Italian American households from the 19th century onwards, and was also called "Sunday gravy". Although the origins was a dish with more meat than tomatoes, tomato gravy soon developed into a tomato sauce that often had no pieces of meat, but included animal fat. Typically, tomato gravy is served over pasta.
India Some Indian curries have a tomato-based sauce, notably many vegetarian-style dishes. ==See also==