Do tomato base sauces give you heartburn, indigestion or an upset stomach?!? Then this sauce will be your new favorite recipe!
I personally cannot tolerate tomatoes very well, but I love all things tomato based such as spaghetti, chili, pizza sauce, taco meat, etc.
While I can enjoy the occasional tomato based sauce every now and then I like to keep them out of my diet majority of the time. It’s just not worth it to me. The only time I was able to tolerate tomatoes was while I was pregnant! Interesting enough your immune system tends to calm down while your pregnant to ensure a safe environment for the baby, so my immune system didn’t react to tomatoes during that time. The body is pretty amazing like that!
On top of already knowing that tomatoes bother me, I got validation on why that actually happens. Did you know that we can ingest plant viruses, and while they don't make us "ill" they can stay alive in our gut microbiome and attack the very same plants they came from when we eat them. This means we can have an inflammatory response to those specific plant foods which can show up as indigestion, bloating, gas, abdominal pain, skin rashes and digestive issues-just to name a few! After doing a Viome Health Intelligence test, which consists of a blood and stool sample, I found out that my microbiome contains tomato brown rugose fruit virus, pepper mild mottle virus AND paprika mild mottle virus. Which explains 100% why I NEVER feel good if I eat tomatoes, peppers or spicy foods with paprika in them! The Viome test is by far the most detailed test I've every used on myself or with my clients. The scientific research that comes back with your results is very in depth. It is all very easy to access as well, you just download the Viome App where your results will be loaded when they are ready and you can see your results whenever you want. Some of the things they test for are:
Foods you should AVOID & MINIMIZE
Gut Microbiome Health
Mitochondrial Health
Immune System Health
Cellular Health
Stress Response Health
Biological Age
And within each of these categories there are detailed reports such as your inflammatory activity, microbiomes present in your gut (bacteria, viruses and parasites), digestive efficiency, metabolic fitness, and MANY MANY more! I am a huge advocate for this test and I love talking about it with anyone who is interested and helping others navigate their way through their results after taking it. :) If you're interested you can use the code CLESEN10 for a discount when ordering, and I'd be happy to answer any questions about the test just shoot me an email.
Anyways, back to my no-mato sauce recipe! This recipe can be used as a spaghetti sauce with meatballs, as a chili, or pizza sauce. I personally added in some ground beef when I made it last night because we used it as a pasta sauce. I used Butcher Box's 100% grass-fed hormone-free ground beef. I love ordering from them every month for our meat it makes it easy and affordable to keep quality meat in the house for dinners. If you've never tried Butcher Box you can try them out for $30 off your first order with this link here! It is the perfect tomato sauce substitute for anyone who can't tolerate tomatoes!
Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil or grass-fed butter
1/2 onion chopped (I sometimes omit the onion, and the sauce still taste AMAZING)
1 tablespoon dried Italian Seasoning
2 tsp garlic powder (or use garlic infused olive oil in place of regular olive oil if you are sensitive to garlic)
5 whole carrots cut up into rounds
1 whole butternut squash chopped (or 1 Trader Joe's bag pre-chopped ;) )
1/2 cup white mushrooms
2 tsp sea salt
A few grinds of black pepper
1 cup of cooked beets (I like to buy the already prepared beets from Trader Joe's)
16 oz of bone broth (I like to use beef bone broth)
Instructions:
You can definitely cook this sauce in a large pot on the stove, but I just find it easiest to throw into the crockpot and let it simmer all day. With that being said, place your crockpot on the low-heat setting.
Add in all of the ingredients except for the beets.
Let the sauce ingredients cook in the crockpot for 6 hours and then add in the beets at the end.
With a hand emersion blender, blend up the sauce ingredients into the texture of your choice. I like to leave it a little chunky so it has the texture of "tomatoes" in the sauce. You can also blend this sauce in a blender or food processor, just make sure to only give it a couple pulses so it isn't too runny!
Then feel free to use as is, or add ground meat to the sauce and use on top of pasta or add some hot sauce and cheese for a nice little chili!