Pressure Cooker Marinara Sauce

When I'm meal prepping for the week on Sunday's, there's a good chance I'm making something that involves Marinara sauce. To avoid having to make new batches for every recipe I like to make enough to have bags on hand in the freezer. So if you're looking for a smaller portion of marinara sauce you'll have to divide this in four! But, if you're looking for a bulk marinara sauce that's super easy and tasty - then this is for you.

I find that the pressure cooker takes the bitterness out of the tomatoes better than my traditional method does and there are some people who believe this actually reduces the lectin content as well (read this for more information). Lastly, the pressure cooker is a great way to set it and forget it while you focus on something besides stirring!

Also, in an effort to save people time I thought it was worth mentioning that I just discovered a huge game-changing device for the kitchen that is also very useful in this recipe. It's a hand garlic slicer from Oxo that I found on Amazon. I often find myself buying random kitchen devices (like that avocado tool) that eventually end up collecting dust in a kitchen cabinet, but this one has quickly risen to the top of the most useful things we have in our kitchen, especially with as much garlic as we cook with! You just throw a handful of garlic into this, slide back and fourth and bam... you've got sliced garlic! And you can throw it in the dishwasher. 

Serves: 6 quarts
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

• 2 carrots peeled but kept whole
• 2 small onions peeled but kept whole
• 2 large sprigs of basil
• Six 28 oz can of San Marzano tomatoes crushed by hand (save the tomato cans for later in the recipe)
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• 15 garlic cloves sliced thin
• Salt to taste
• Red Pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Put olive oil and sliced garlic into the pressure cooker (you must have the larger 6 quart pressure cooker for this recipe)
2. Add salt and red pepper to taste
3. Turn on the saute function and stir until the garlic is fragrant
4. Once the garlic is fragrant, you can turn off the pressure cooker
5. Carefully add the crushed tomatoes, carrots, onions and basil
6. Stir until combined
7. Take the remaining empty cans of tomatoes and add ~1/3-1/4 a cup of water per can and swish around to get any remaining tomato sauce. Take each can and dump the water / remaining tomato sauce into the pressure cooker. Make sure you don't fill above the 'fill' line
8. Put the top on the pressure cooker
9. Set to manual and add 45 minutes to the countdown
10. After the time is finished and the air has released, you can open the top and remove the carrots, onions and basil sprigs
11. If you're freezing this for later, make sure the sauce cools before putting in plastic bags
12. Enjoy!