page_title: Tomato sauce
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Tomato sauce / Varieties / United States
caption_attribution_description: Ingredients for making a fermented salsa. Clockwise from top: capsicum (bell peppers) garlic salt, chili pepper, ground coriander seed red onions fresh coriander (cilantro) tomatoes Recipe at the Wikibooks Cookbook.
context_page_description: Tomato sauce can refer to many different sauces made primarily from tomatoes, usually to be served as part of a dish, rather than as a condiment. Tomato sauces are common for meat and vegetables, but they are perhaps best known as bases for Mexican salsas or sauces for pasta dishes. Tomatoes have a rich flavor, high water content, soft flesh which breaks down easily, and the right composition to thicken into a sauce when they are cooked. All of these qualities make them ideal for simple and appealing sauces.
  In countries such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, the term tomato sauce is used to describe a condiment similar to ketchup. In some of these countries, both terms are used for the condiment.
context_section_description: In the U.S., "tomato sauce" refers to two distinct sauces. One is a tomato concentrate with salt and minimal herbs, used in cooking.  This product is considered incomplete and not normally used as is. Related ingredients are tomato purée and tomato paste, each of which is similar but paste has a thicker consistency.  Tomato purée and tomato paste have FDA standards of identity (since 1939) for percentage of tomato solids, and generally do not contain seasonings other than salt; tomato sauce is nonstandardized.
  The second use of the term "tomato sauce" in the U.S. is for a cooked sauce of tomatoes, usually containing olive oil and garlic. This type of tomato sauce is generally served with pasta, and sometimes with meat. Less commonly, it is served with chicken or beef alone. One popular variety of tomato sauce is marinara sauce, an Italian-American term for a simple tomato sauce with herbs – mostly basil and oregano.
  Contrary to what the name might suggest ('marinara' is Italian for "sailor-style") it is without seafood. In Italy, marinara refers either to sauces made with tomato and garlic (as in pizza marinara) or to seafood-based sauces or foods; in this case, the name does not imply that tomato is either included or excluded.
  Some Italian Americans on the East Coast and around the Chicago area refer to tomato sauce as "gravy", "tomato gravy", or "Sunday gravy", especially sauces with a large quantity of meat simmered in them, similar to the Italian Neapolitan ragù. The term "Sunday gravy" derives from the Italian tradition of having a large, family dinner on Sunday afternoons. "Gravy" is an erroneous English translation from the Italian sugo which means juice, but can also mean sauce (as in sugo per pastasciutta).
  The expression for "gravy" in Italian is sugo d'arrosto, which is literally "juice of a roast" and is not specifically tomato sauce. Sicilian Americans in communities like Buffalo and Rochester, New York use the terms "sarsa" and "succu" interchangeably for tomato sauces of all types used with pasta, and "gravy" only in reference to brown meat gravies.  The Italian-American community of New Orleans, however, is largely Sicilian in origin and takes great pride in its Creole-Italian cuisine largely based on what is known locally as "red gravy" (tomato sauce).
  American supermarkets commonly carry a variety of prepared tomato sauces described as "spaghetti sauce" or "pasta sauce". Common variations include meat sauce, marinara sauce, and sauces with mushrooms or sweet red peppers.
caption: Ingredients to make a U.S.-style salsa
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