Fix Acidic Tomato Sauce In An Instant With Vanilla Extract

Have you ever made a basic tomato sauce at home or opened a store-bought jar, only to find it tastes a bit too tart and tangy for your liking? There are several reasons why this might be the case. It could be that the sauce is made from a variety of tomatoes with naturally high acidity, or perhaps you used canned tomatoes that contain citric acid.

Regardless of the reason, you're now left with a sauce that has an eye-puckeringly sour flavor. But fret not, as it's nothing that can't be fixed. All you need to balance an acidic tomato sauce is a dash of vanilla extract. Sweet vanilla has the ability to highlight subtle flavors hidden in savory foods without overpowering the dish. When added to a tart tomato sauce, the extract tones down the fruit's naturally acidic flavor and brings out its sweeter notes instead. The result is a sauce that is soft, smooth, well-rounded, and wonderfully balanced — all without the vanilla leaving an obvious flavor of its own.

To fix your tomato sauce, add the vanilla extract towards the end of the cooking process. Start small by pouring in about half a teaspoon of the extract at first, and then stir in more as you taste — a little goes a long way here.

While any vanilla extract can mellow a sour tomato sauce, consider using a Mexican variety if you have some on hand. Mexican vanilla extract is known for its sweet, woody, and spicy flavor, which pairs particularly well with savory ingredients like tomato while also tempering its acidity.

Another easy way to balance a tangy tomato sauce is by adding sugar. However, sugar won't necessarily fix the sauce; it will only mask the sharp, sour flavor with sweetness. Tomatoes — and by extension their sauce — taste acidic because they have a low pH. So, to truly neutralize that acidity, you need to add an alkaline ingredient to the sauce, which will raise the pH level. Baking soda is one such ingredient — simply add a pinch to your sauce. In fact, baking soda can fix bitter canned tomatoes too.

A fabulous hack endorsed by Giada De Laurentiis is to use carrots to balance an acidic tomato sauce. Carrots are a high-pH alkaline vegetable, so they too can cut through tomato's acidity. You could either puree the vegetable and whisk it into the sauce, or add peeled or grated carrots to it. Alternatively, you could just pop a whole, peeled carrot into the pot, and then remove it once the sauce is done simmering — that's all it really takes to fix an overly tart tomato sauce.