My husband and I are big fans of pasta with tomato sauce (especially with hot Italian sausage!), and we have it for dinner often. I rarely have the time to wait for fresh tomatoes to cook down in the sauce, so I almost always use canned tomatoes (which are also a lot cheaper). The only problem with canned tomatoes is that they always have that slightly acidic and bitter taste that… well… makes them taste canned. Some folks combat this with a little sugar or by removing the seeds from the tomatoes, but my trick is baking soda.

You remember how as a kid you’d mix baking soda with vinegar, and the result would be a big bubbly mess that you called a volcano? The same principles apply here, and the baking soda will react with the acid in your tomatoes. Just add a couple teaspoons of baking soda (but not too much!) to your tomatoes as you’re cooking your meal. When you stir it in, the sauce will fizz, foam, and bubble as the baking soda reacts with all that extra acid in the tomatoes. Just keep stirring for a few minutes and soon the bubbles will be gone… along with that canned tomato taste!