Do you like mushrooms? You could roast them and add to the finished sauce. Or chop and nuke eggplant then add to the sauteeing onion before the tomato goes in. Or just omit any veg for a more streamlined tomato sauce.

If you have no mushrooms, a good ounce or a bit more of Worcestershire or Asian fish sauce, or some anchovies, would do the same as mushrooms - adding little or no flavor but providing an umami boost to enhance the flavor. I might also be tempted to add a few chopped stalks of celery with the onions.

What time do we eat? Sounds very good.

Mushrooms and eggplant are family favorites. Would you add equal amounts to the carrots? We're big anchovy people too!

Is celery a root vegetable?

green peppers, red peppers or roasted red peppers

I agree with Lars.

Celery is not a root vegetable.

blfenton, I think "root vegetables" are those that grow underground. Celery grows above ground (note the leaves at top when untrimmed). Celery root (celieriac) grows underground.

I's leave the carrots out and adjust for sweetness.

I've seen Nigella Lawson use red lentils as a sub for carrots in her tomato sauce. Need to add water obviously. I very rarely cook with or eat carrots and feel no need to sub anything. I just don't like them all that much....

Sorry but I have to disagree with celery not also being a root vegetable. The root of a certain type of celery is sold a Celeriac which is a type of celery. It is a very interesting veggie and can be found in the grocery stores in this area. When you purchase smell it first as some have a very strong celery flavor/smell while others maybe much lighter in taste. When I have purchased, it is normally expensive, a difficulty that I have with it is the flesh grows over the roots and it is sometimes difficult to remove all of the roots.

You can substitute any vegetable for the carrots that you like. You will often see the same/similar recipes for summer pasta using summer squash along with other root vegetables.

Then I would add celery and adjust for sweetness as there are no carrots. I like to use brown sugar rather than white. I know there basically the same but brown seems a little more robust.

Actually what about corn. It's sweet and is not a root vegetable.

Ooohh, so many good root veggies, but if those are out.. and others have added good suggestions.

A few more. Winter squashes, sweet potato, tart and hard apples, fennel bulbs, and kohlrabi.

A sweet addition that also can add depth is molasses.

"Sorry but I have to disagree with celery not also being a root vegetable."

Haha, you can think of it as you wish but I don't think you're correct.

Root vegetables are harvested by being dug out of the ground. Celery stalks are cut off their roots above ground, not unlike so many other above ground veggies like cauliflower, etc, that are similarly not root vegetables because they live above the surface.

Celeriac is a different plant as far as I understand.

I would chunk up some winter squash, cooking it just long enough to be tender without dissolving into mush. If sweet potatoes are allowed, I'd use the dark orange "yam" sweet potato. It's a perfect sub for carrots.

celeriac

celery

Thank you for the effort.

What Olychick said--sweet potato or winter squash sub for carrots.

I'll take my tomato sauce without sweet potato in it please. Thanks.

(carrots are not such an essential ingredient in the recipe I see above such that they need to be replaced with something else)

A diced sweet red bell pepper might be a nice substitute for the carrot in your sauce. I would sauté it with the onions.

seagrass

"(carrots are not such an essential ingredient in the recipe I see above such that they need to be replaced with something else)"

Well, when you post asking for a sub for a recipe, we'll definitely take that into consideration. Since Annegriet asked for ideas, that's what everyone is giving her, including you in a previous post.

Re Celeriac. Botanically speaking Celery and Celery are two varieties of the same species, Apium graveolens. They are cultivated forms of the same plant and neither is a root vegetable, although Celeriac may be referred to as such in the kitchen. Celeriac is a swollen stem or hypocotyl and it grows above ground. You don’t dig it out. Celery is enlarged leaf petioles developed from the same common ancestor species.

As for substitutes, personally I don’t stick so religiously to recipes that I’d be fazed by leaving out a couple of carrots, but if I did, I’d use sharp flavoured apple. Apple and carrot are both used in recipes to add sweetness and reduce sucrose. Many of the other suggestions would work fine in a pasta sauce but imo they’d change the flavour, especially mushrooms or peppers, and you’d be making something different. Btw, that seems a heck of a lot of oil.

I guess I would grab a handful of O'Brian potatoes, which I often do....love having them on hand in the freezer for just such need.

Late to this, but still adding my 2 cents 🙂

I agree that winter squash might be the best choice as a sub for carrots in a tomato sauce, since it has a similar texture and sweetness when cooked.

And parsley might provide some of the flavor carrots give, since it's in the same family.

It sounds like your recipe is fairly carrot intensive, so it is a bit puzzling why you want to make carrots in a sauce if you dont like carrots. The recipe for the sauce is a simple and basic tomato sauce and seem indistinguishable from countless others just like it. Unless you use the carrots it does not seem to have much point to it since it is just a simple plain basic tomato sauce.

I am suspecting that the "rustic" in the title of this is referring to the fact that root vegetables are being cooked in it. The sauce is nothing more than a most basic sauce. It is the carrots that make it "rustic".

So, is it the sauce that is your objective, or is the cooked vegetable?

I am assuming that this is a cooked sauce, not a fresh one.

There are several comments and suggestions but they address different things since we don't know what the objective is.

Whether it is the sauce or the vegetables, my suggestion is to leave the carrots in large pieces so that they can lend whatever it its that they are intended for in the sauce, but you can pick them out if you dont like them.

I had always dismissed carrots as so darned uninteresting until I learned how to use them. Now, we have carrots almost every day in the winter.

I precook them two or three different ways and have them on hand to add to many more things that I used to imagine!

It surprised me to find so many uses for carrots after years of thinking of them as the "mousey brown" of the vegetables. They are the bright shining stars on my dinner plate now.

Yeah, I never saw this as a possibility, either. Amazing what I was missing! My least favorite is raw carrots. They are best cooked till just lightly tender.

Before you add sugar to your tomato sauce, let me offer you one very easy suggestion. Instead of adding sugar, add a pinch of baking soda.

First it will foam up and the sauce may turn pinkish. After a couple of minutes it will subside and the sauce will go back to being a even nicer shade of red than it was and, by neutralizing the acid in the tomatoes, you will taste the sweetness.

Try it! It works and you have nothing to lose.

Adding sugar to an acid is how you make lemonade. You are not making lemonade here. Balance that acid in the sauce and the full sweetness comes forward.

You just put a good pinch of maybe half a teaspoonr per quart, or so. I just pinch.

I will do this after the sauce has been assembled and before it is left of cook further. It works amazingly well.

I, personally , question the vinegar in the sauce as per the recipe since you will be adding acid to an already acidic food.