They are often served with meat and vegetables but most frequently they are served with pasta. Tomatoes bear a rich flavor, large water content and soft flesh that breaks down easily. These properties make tomatoes efficient to be used in making sauces. A simple sauce contains chopped tomatoes cooked in little olive oil and simmered until it loses its raw flavor and then salt is added. While preparing this sauce little amount of water is also added so that it may not become too dry. Onion and garlic are sautéed first before tomatoes are added. Other seasoning agents like basil, oregano, parsley, red pepper or black pepper are also added. Ground or chopped meat is also added in some preparations.

 

In some countries like Australia, United Kingdom, New Zealand this sauce is designated as ketchup. In classical French cooking the sauce is made from a mixture of salt belly of pork, onion, bay leaves, thyme, tomato puree, roux, garlic, pepper, sugar and salt. Roux is actually a thickening agent prepared from butter and flour. In Australia, the procedure of preparation of tomato sauce or ketchup is almost similar. It has got its entry into the Italian cuisines quite late. It is very frequently used while serving different types of pastas. This is the most popular condiment in the Aztec food. Bernardino de Sahagún was the first western person who described the methodology to prepare tomato sauce in Europe. The common Mexican tomato sauces are tomato sauce and green tomato sauce. This is kept as a stock for other spicy sauces.