Although you probably don't have any on hand, I can't live without tomato powder and think your sauce would benefit from this ingredient to boost that tomato flavor your sauce seems to be lacking.

Tomato powder has such a lovely rich flavor. You can purchase it in small amounts from The Spice House (see link below). It has an indefinite shelf-life. I store it in the dry confines of the refrigerator with some moisture absorbing "pillows" in the top to keep it from clumping.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: The Spice House - tomato powder

Part of the problem, Shaun, is that this is wintertime and the tomatoes aren't as tasty as they will be 3 months from now.

And a fresh tomato sauce can indeed be very light tasting.

Add more of all the seasonings and stop thinking of it as "low sodium"! You'll be happier when you bar that thinking from your mind.

More wine

(inside and out LOL)

More herbs, I use a heavy hand when I'm cooking and my FIL will be over (he also is salt averse)

I second the tomato powder.

/tricia

Unless you have a great source, fresh tomatoes in winter are typically rather bland and not so tasty. Check by eating one raw - if it is not delicious, that's the problem.

If that is the case, add some tomato paste (can or tube) and/or the tomato powder that grainlady mentioned (I've never seen it, but it sounds good). And/or, roast the fresh tomatoes after peeling and seeding but before chopping and adding to the sauce. Get your onions nicely browned. Maybe add some mushrooms that you've sauteed until very brown, then chopped or puree'd in food processor. Anchovy paste (sold in tubes) also works.

Basically, if the fresh tomatoes themselves are not very flavourful, you'll want to add stuff that has deep flavor, which includes a lot of things that are browned or concentrated.

Finally, unless you have a medical reason to avoid salt, add some. 1 tsp of table salt is about 2400 mg sodium. Standard recommendation is

You could roast some garlic and also add some tomato paste.
A few pork chops wouldn't hurt either!

I'd brown the onions, and even the tomatoes in the olive oil to get some flavor going. I agree the Tomato Paste will probably also add a lot of flavor, and a couple of Tablespoons would be all you'd need.

I second the tomato paste suggestion, one tablespoon at a time. Maybe even sauteing it in olive oil until it turns light brown; Cooks Illustrated always recommends this step. It will add some richness & depth. I'd also order some of that tomato powder for future use. Sounds much easier than dealing with a 6 oz. can and its leftovers.

Some stores sell salt free tomato paste or just compare brands. I've found that the amounts of sodium differ greatly. Also, as others have said, fresh tomatoes naturally produce a lighter tasting sauce. Roasting the tomatoes with garlic & onions will make a richer sauce. You can even do that with canned whole tomatoes (drained). And again as others have said, fresh tomatoes are not that tasty right now.

As Jessy suggested, you could also go heavier on the herbs. I bet the sauce tastes fine. I've found that the more I fuss with something, the weirder it tastes to me. To the point that I'm never satisfied. Sometimes my helpful additions actually make the dish taste worse.

Perhaps all it needs is to sit overnight so all the flavors meld. But don't give up. You can still make lower sodium AND tasty food. It's not impossible!

Yes, maybe roasted garlic squeezed into it would help. It's still cooking. I have time to roast some...... I'll let you know.

Tomato paste will boost the flavor....but it will also add a generous amount of sodium.
More basil and since you used fresh tomatoes, likely a squeeze of lemon.
Linda c

I like the pork idea too, but dont have any. Carmelized onions would be good.... I have garlic roasting now. That should help.

I've never heard of tomato powder, sounds like good stuff!

Even basic brands like Hunts carry no salt added tomato paste.

Though it won't help for this batch, in the future, if you're using less than wonderful tomatoes, roast the tomatoes at very low temp in a bit of olive oil and dried oregano, then make sauce as you describe. You'll get that depth of flavor.
Ann

A lot of good suggestions here.

Why do you remove seeds? the gel around the seeds has a lot of flavor.

Yes, tomato powder.

Also this would be a perfect use of mushroom powder. It will absorb some of the watery-ness, plus mushroom is one of the "umami"foods.

dcarch

I removed the seeds because I thought I heard it made the sauce bitter.

Ann after I put it all together, I thought about roasting the tomatoes... D'OH! Next time.

So yeah, it was pretty much tasteless. The boys opned up a jar of Bertolli Roasted Garlic pasta sauce. I dont blame them.

I saved 3 containers of this sauce, I might cook some pork butt in it tomorrow and see where that takes it.

Thanks friends!

[whispering in your ear] Pork fat, pork fat, poooooork faaaaaat . . .

Other than the roasted garlic, what did you add to the base you made? The tomato powder is wonderful, I strongly recommend that you order some.

Also, i think you are looking for the jarred sauce taste, which as much more salt. You need to mentally prepare yourself that you will not get that. Add a very small sprinkle of salt to the pot, some roasted neck bones and see.

Peppi, you're right. I was expecting a heartier more flavorful sauce like jarred or even sauce made from canned tomatoes. I'm going to use pork to flavor this. That will do the trick!

I will get tomato powder. Yes I will!

If you plan to use a lot of tomato powder, check out the Emergency Essentials website (beprepared.com). It's an emergency preparedness site and they sell #10 cans of the stuff.
Sounds like a lot, but when you figure that you're only storing the "tomato" part and not a bunch of water, it evens out. I like them because MAX shipping charge is $12.
It goes down if you order more!! As low as FREE, but you have to order several hundred dollars worth. Worth it if you have a few people split an order.

It can be tomato juice, sauce, paste depending on how much water you add to it. I'm halfway through my can. Nothing added, just pure powdered tomatoes.

Deanna (no affiliation, just a happy, repeat customer)

I have a recipe for a light tomato sauce using fresh tomatoes. It also calls for sundried tomatoes, which I reconstitute in veg. broth. You have to caramelize the other ingredients like onions, garlic, etc. Perhaps just letting it sit will improve the situation.

This fall, we dehydrated buckets of our home grown hierloom 'Black Prince' tomatoes & ground them into tomato powder. Oh gosh, it's delicious! Used some this past weekend in bread. Just made a paste from the tomato powder, minced garlic, finely diced fresh rosemary that DH dug out of the snow (ugh!), some lemon zest, black pepper, & olive oil. I hesitate to mention this because I know many will go, "Ick!"; but we also used a bit of anchovy paste. Then, rolled the dough, spread the paste & rolled back up like cinnamon rolls but shaped into a free-form loaf. Baked as usual. Fantastic...smelled & tasted just like August's fresh heirloom tomatoes!

Give the tomato powder a try...it really packs a great flavor punch. IMO, so much better than canned tomato products. It's also very versatile. I've never purchased tomato powder from Emergency Essentials but I have bought from the company many times over about three decades & never had a problem.

/tricia

I will definitey try it.

Shaun, sweetie, PLEASE try to get past the "low sodium sauce" issues. So it didn't have taste, add some! A quick-made sauce from fresh tomatoes will never have the depth of taste of the longer cooked sauces.

Here is a marinara sauce I've used for years. Using Hunts whole plum tomatoes with no added salt (can says 20 mg total), this tastes wonderful. If you don't use salt, look for recipes that have other ingredients to pick up the slack. Can you tell that reducing salt in food has become a habit for me?????

AUDREY'S MARINARA SAUCE

2-28 oz. cans of tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
1 small carrot
1 large onion
2 TBS Italian herbs
2 TBS butter (unsalted)
1/2 cup red wine
Basil to taste
Salt and pepper (I use just a grind of pepper but "to taste" is the key)
Olive Oil

Mash tomatoes and heat to simmer in large, deep pan. Finely dice onion and carrot. Thin slice garlic. Using 1/3 cup olive oil, saute vegetables to tender but not browned (about 5 minutes). Add to hot tomatoes and cook 20 minutes. Remove from stove and mash (stick blender works well) to make smooth. Return to heat. Salt and pepper to taste. Add herbs, butter and red wine. Cook 30 minutes and serve over spaghetti. Sauce may be refrigerated for up to one week or frozen for up to 6 months.

I agree, as long as you are longing for the salt flavor, you won't notice the other flavors. My favorite way to dress pasta is to sautee some garlic, add chopped fresh tomatoes just until warmed, toss in the pasta, add copious amounts of chopped fresh basil, some pepper and freshly grated parmesan, yummy. Those fresh homegrown SunGold cherry tomatoes are lovely for this purpose. Of course I don't like the cooked tomato sauces very much, so....

And, as has been mentioned, if the tomatoes weren't wonderful, the sauce won't be. Sometimes canned tomatoes really are better than fresh.

My doctor told me yesterday that average humans have 10,000 taste buds. Those regenerate approximately every 10 days to 2 weeks, so we get a whole new set of taste buds. If you don't get the new taste buds accustomed to salt, you won't miss it after a few weeks, and will even notice the salty flavor more, so there's hope.

As for the tomato powder, I haven't tried it. I sliced tomatoes, put them in the dehydrator. 40 HOURS LATER, they were still flesible but certainly couldn't be powdered. And yes, they were homegrown tomatoes and yes, I have a very nice Excaliber dehydrator, so that's not it. It just didn't work and was a waste of time and perfectly good tomatoes. Well, it wasn't, because I re-hydrated the tomatoes by throwing them in soup, but they couldn't be powdered. so, I'd suggest you buy some of the commercially prepared stuff first and see if it helps, then you could try to make your own, hopefully with better success than I had.

Also, if you get tomatoes that are wonderful in season, you can just wash them and toss them in the freezer in a bag. When they thaw, the skins slip right off and you have really good tomatoes. If you have any freezer room, LOL. I can mine and that way I can add no salt at all and still have wonderful home grown tomatoes in the middle of winter.

Annie

Shaun my dear, you don't need to get past any "issue". Just keep doing what you are doing. And keeping asking for help here. Lots of great well meaning advice.

It is going to take a while to get use to cooking with less salt. For the simple reason that salt does enhance the flavours of most foods.

You are making a major adjustment and if you don't enjoy your food it will be more difficult to stick with the new diet long term.

You might try to reduce your salt intake gradually, rather than all at once. Start by adding half of what you would normally add and take it from there.

You know that you will get a lot of support here from your friends.

Ann

Beachlilly, well that's why I came here asking for help in giving that sauce taste! I really dont have an issue; I called it "low sodium sauce" because I didnt want people to tell me to add salt to give it taste. I needed to accentuate that I needed "low sodium".....I've gotten some excellent ideas here. Thank you for posting Audrey's Marinara recipe. Copied/Saved it.

Annie, Yep I think the tomatoes I used didnt have much taste to begin with. Good to know about the taste buds!

Ann it's been since January 2nd now that I've cut out so much salt. So I should be tasting differently very soon now hahahha!

I appreciate all the input and suggestions I've gotten here on this forum. Thank you all~

OOps, posted this on the wrong post initially so reposting here:

*

Shaun, I was at the Spice House today and picked you up a bottle of Tomato powder. I tried to email you but you don't have email set up through GW.

I do, so send me an email with your address and it'll be on it's way to you ASAP. I looked to see if they had Mural of flavor or something similar but they don't :(

BTW, beware the potassium chloride. ESPECIALLY if you have any cardiac disease. Raising your potassium levels above normal can play havoc with your health. Side effects are quite dangerous including kidney failure. Have your Dr check your potassium levels before you use a lot of it.

Shaun, I agree with L2C46, have your doc check before you use much of anything. Everything seems to be connected to something else, so you take care of one issue and it causes another! I don't want anything bad happening to you because you were trying to be better! Keep it up, you should have a whole new set of taste buds any time now. (grin)

Rita, my cholesterol did the same thing. My doc says it's because with hyperlipidemia, your liver "thinks" it's supposed to keep levels unusually high. The cholesterol level in some of us have very little to do with our diet, so, you eat less cholesterol and saturated fat and your liver just pumps out more to keep that level up. So mine didn't go higher, but several months on a vegetarian diet and lots of exercise and extremely low levels of saturated fat and cholesterol resulted in my cholesterol going from 510 to 497. At that point, they put me on the meds, but even now it's never below 240.

For other people, though, lowering the saturated fats and cholesterol intake works pretty well. Elery managed to reduce his cholesterol by 40 points by staying away from the chips and crackers he likes to eat at night and replacing them with dry cereal and a few nuts. Oh, and he eats a LOT of lentils, loves 'em.

Annie