The easiest, healthy, instant pot marinara sauce

This is the easiest recipe for homemade marinara you will ever find and thanks to the instant pot electric pressure cooker, it's also the fastest. I may never buy marinara sauce again.

This recipe also doesn't have any added sugar! By my calculation, the whole recipe is 3 points on the Weight Watchers Freestyle program. The 3 points come from the olive oil used to saute the onions and garlic but you could use cooking spray instead for a zero point recipe.

Ingredients:
2 tsp olive oil
1/2 of a small onion, diced
4 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled (or you can substitute 4 tsp of chopped refrigerated garlic)
32 oz crushed tomatoes
15 oz tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
2 Tb dried basil
2 Tb Italian seasoning
1 tsp salt

Equipment:
Instant pot or other electric pressure cooker, I use a 6 quart duo.
Garlic press, if you don't have a garlic press you can dice your garlic before you begin.

Turn your instant pot on the saute setting, low temperature and add the olive oil and onions to the bottom. After the onion cooks 2-3 minutes, add your garlic. I use my garlic press and press it directly into the pot. Saute the garlic and onion and additional 2-3 minutes.

Add all remaining ingredients to the pot, using the half cup of water to rinse the remaining tomato sauce and crushed tomatoes from the cans into the pot. Lock the lid in place on the top of your instant pot and turn the vent to sealing. Press cancel on the pot to end the saute setting and then set the pot to the pressure cook, high setting and set the timer for 10 minutes. Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes and allow the pressure to naturally release for at least 15 minutes.

After the natural release is finished you can quick release any remaining pressure, carefully.

I have not tried to double this recipe in the 6 qt or made this in a mini 3 qt instant pot, I have intentionally not filled the pot full to avoid spraying sauce out of the valve.

I have used this recipe as a marina sauce for pasta and also as a pizza sauce for 2-ingredient dough pizza.

This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. This post main contain affiliate links, if you make a purchase using one of these links this blog may receive a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Pizza week continues - Sweet potato arugula

This recipe was actually the inspiration of pizza week. I saw a recipe on thekitchn for sweet potato arugula pizza (this is their photo, I did not get a shot of mine), which just sounded SO tasty. Normally, I don't break out new recipes when I'm cooking for other people, but I decided to make this when some friends came over, not for dinner exactly but weighty nibbles.

First, let me say that the flavor combination was excellent. The sweet potato and arugula are a perfect match. Next, let me say, this recipe did not work at all. The sweet potato do not cook nearly fast enough for them to be ready before the crust is anything other than burnt and I sliced them wafer thin. I highly recommend you make this but when you do, make sure to pre-cook the sweet potato until they are at least half-way cooked either by microwaving your slices or cooking them on the stove in a little bit of water. Seriously, I had to take all of the slices off the pizza, cook them more and put them back on. A royal pain in the bum.

When the munchies were finally ready, I had some very hungry guests (including me) but we all loved this. I would definitely make it again but with pre-cooking my sweet potatoes.

The complete opposite of Italian pizza

I recently went on a business trip to Chicago and I must say I was thoroughly impressed not just with the city's breath-taking architecture but high quality eateries. Okay, it's a little heavy on the pizzerias, but they are good pizzerias. I found myself thinking, "too bad it's SO cold in the winter!"

As luck would have it, the hotel I was staying at was in the Magnificent Mile area and just a few blocks from the original Pizzeria Uno, the birthplace of Chicago's deep dish. Which, was of course super busy, and just around the corner from their second location Pizzeria Due, a significantly less crowded incarnation.

I had never had real Chicago deep dish and was of course keen to partake! I went with a colleague of mine, who is from the UK and was unfamiliar with this Chicago treat. In the UK and Europe, pizza is more often the flatter, more authentic, Italian style. We Americans monkey around with everything. I briefed my colleague on deep dish on the walk to the restaurant, "imagine the complete opposite of Italian pizza - that is deep dish." I also included some historical information on the immigration waves to the US from Italy and how this led to rise of different regional pizza styles, very thorough.

We chose an amazing spinach and broccoli topped (stuffed?) pizza, and it was delicious. The bread was crispy the toppings pouring out all over the plate and lots and lots of cheese! I mean, look at that big slab of deliciousness! I'm not sure I'd want to eat a meat topped deep dish pizza though...too dense. The veggies were a nice counterbalance.

I highly recommend the deep dish! But you need to be willing to accept is as a different entity than Italian or even New York style pizza.