Sometimes, you may experience that tomato sauce or tomato ketchup tastes a little bit bitter and more unpleasant when it receives acidic ingredients more than the normal quantity. If tomato sauce gets unpleasant, it is better to get rid of it. It is important to use the ingredients in a moderate quantity. The following are instructions for remedying bitter tomato sauce. Tomato sauce can become quite harsh or metallic tasting if not cooked properly. Cans of tomatoes, for example, can range greatly in sweetness from one brand to the next. In this piece, I share the methods I use to improve the flavor of a tomato sauce that has turned bitter. Tomato sauce that has turned bitter due to overcooking can be remedied by adding sugar or baking soda to reduce the acidity. Adding sugar, butter, or cream might help cover the bitter flavor. Think about the variety and freshness of the tomatoes you use in your sauce and how that can affect the overall bitterness. Because tomatoes are so acidic, tomato sauce can taste sour. Inadequate or unripe tomatoes would negate the fruit's natural sweetness, so it's advisable to invest in the best available option. Fortunately, I can help you turn things around by giving you a few guidelines to follow. If your tomato sauce tastes bitter, read on to find out what to do about it. There are also some of my favorite tomato sauce recipes in here.
- Improving Overly Sour Tomato Sauce
Bitterness develops in tomato sauce when the tomatoes are very acidic, the tomatoes aren't ripe enough, or the tomatoes are canned. 
Let's focus on saving the sauce and your food for now, and we'll get into the other factors later. Everything we have thought of so far is a way to save a sauce that has already been prepared. Alternative 1: Take a Look at Your Salt Adding salt is the simplest and most basic step you can take. Salt, when used sparingly, tempers bitterness and heightens sweetness. Extra salt makes things taste overly savory, so use it sparingly. That's something we want to avoid at all costs, so please exercise caution. In an effort to enhance the sauce's flavor, you could try adding a little salt. It could work, but if it doesn't, don't bother adding more salt. The next step in reducing the sauce will make it saltier, so keep that in mind. Second, you can reduce the sauce by cooking it for longer. It's common knowledge that heating tomato sauce makes it sweeter and more concentrated. The increased concentration of the sauce or the development of the tomato's natural sugars while heating could both account for this. While some tomatoes are naturally sweet, others benefit from a bit of sugar reduction. If you're able to wait, the longer the better. At least 45 minutes is required for a decent sauce, and several hours is ideal. The sauce might taste better after another 30 minutes of simmering. The food is acceptable at a low simmer, but you shouldn't let it boil over or get it too hot.
- Baking soda, as a third option
Baking soda, being an alkaline, counteracts the acid in the tomatoes. Similar to elementary school chemistry experiments with baking soda and vinegar, this will cause the sauce to bubble briefly before reducing its acidity. 
Safe to consume in proportions similar to those used in baking (a teaspoon or two), baking soda has almost no flavor. Due to the potential for sugar to overly sweeten your sauce, you may want to give this a try first. Bitter tomato sauce can be improved by adding baking soda. Test it out with a half a teaspoon first. Blend and give it a try. Add a further 1/4 teaspoon of salt, whisk, and taste to see if the sauce needs more seasoning. In order to neutralize the sauce and, perhaps, improve its flavor, you should repeat this process. Fourth Choice: Sugar In the world of cooking, this could be considered a "hack," but it is effective nonetheless. Keep in mind that you need only a trace of sugar to mask the bitterness, but not too much that it becomes overpowering. At that moment, you've gone too far. Your bitter tomato sauce might benefit from a little sugar, so add a quarter teaspoon at a time. Blend and give it a try. Repeat the process with another 14 teaspoon if the sauce is still too bitter. Once the sharpness is gone, your sauce may taste a touch off in other ways. At the very end, season to taste with salt, oregano, and whatever else tickles your fancy. Five: Choose Between Butter and Cream Similar to how milk or cream can improve the flavor of harsh black coffee, fat can mellow down the bitterness of a sauce. The lactose sugar will sweeten the sauce, while the richness will hide any bitter undertones. Richness can be added using butter without it becoming too overpowering. The addition of cream will completely alter the flavor of the sauce, turning it orange and creamy instead of a deep tomato red. Choose the one that works best with the rest of the ingredients. 
To sweeten a sour tomato sauce using butter or cream: Sprinkle one heaping teaspoon into your sauce. Melt it and incorporate it into the rest. Check the flavor of your sauce and add extra if you think it needs it.
- The Bitterness Persists If
Think about the possibility that your tomatoes are at fault. It is possible that the fresh tomatoes you used were not ripe enough. If you used canned tomatoes, the bitterness could have come from the seeds being crushed during processing. View my article where I compare using fresh tomatoes with using canned tomatoes while making sauces. The question of why tomato sauce turns bitter is an important one. There are a few reasons why tomato sauce gets bitter. Numerous examples involve acid. Let's find out what causes tomatoes to turn bitter, so we can perhaps avoid that disaster in the kitchen. Choosing the best tomatoes is the first step.
- Pick The Finest Tomatoes For Pasta Sauce
Sauces made with plum tomatoes are delicious. Most people associate them with Italian cuisine because of their mild sweetness. Choose whole canned tomatoes instead than diced or chopped ones for making sauce. When comparing quality, whole tomatoes are superior to chopped or crushed versions, which make use of waste. Sometimes the seeds are smashed or sliced out during the processing of these canned goods. Bitter tomatoes are often the result of crushed seeds that never made it to the cooking process. 
Tomatoes like these, among others, are commonly used to make delicious sauces:
- The Big Mama San Marzano Roma Amish Paste Viva Italy
Perhaps the best sauce tomatoes are San Marzano, an Italian heirloom variety. They're less watery, have thinner skins, fewer seeds, and a higher sugar content. The degree of bitterness in a sauce is often dependent on the variety of tomato used to make it. We like our tomatoes sweet and sour, but not too sour. The best tomatoes are those that have been allowed to ripen on the vine for as long as possible, as this allows them to soak up the most sunshine, which in turn produces more sugar. It's for this reason that canned tomatoes from areas like Italy, where they're harvested later and canned soon after, are widely considered to be the best. Veer clear of canned tomatoes that have been seasoned with herbs, as they often have a metallic aftertaste. The sauce's bitter flavor may have been caused by a number of circumstances, even if the tomatoes were ideal before cooking. Why Does Tomato Paste Taste So Sour? A bitter tomato sauce can be the result of using rotten tomatoes, too much acidity, seeds, skins, burnt garlic, bad herbs, or aluminum pans. Now that we know which tomatoes to use, let's investigate why your sauce turned out bitter. There are a few other ways in which your sauce could turn bitter even if you started with sweet tomatoes. 
Some things to keep in mind are as follows: Take care not to burn the garlic. Garlic becomes bitter if it is cooked for too long. Herbs like oregano and basil are best added at the end of cooking time. Herbs that have been overcooked lose their flavor and become bitter. You shouldn't use an aluminum pan to make your sauce since it changes the flavor of foods that are high in acid. Instead, use a skillet made of iron or stainless steel to get the best possible sauce flavor. Avoid using tomatoes that have been skinned or have seeds removed, since this will result in a less bitter sauce. You can experiment by mixing in some grated carrot with the tomato sauce. A lot of Italians use this method to sweeten their food with real sugar. The acidity of the sauce can be tempered by adding some grated carrots, which also improves the sauce's flavor. Can Bitterness from Tomato Skins Be Avoided? It is recommended that the skins be removed from fresh tomatoes before they are reduced into a sauce since the peels contain tannins that can make the sauce taste bitter. The peels are typically not present in canned tomatoes. The flavonol antioxidants found in the skins contribute to the characteristic bitterness of the fruit. Cooking the skin for a long period causes the flavonols to release a bitter flavor into the sauce. One reason to peel your tomatoes before adding them to your sauce is that the bitterness of the tomato skins will be masked by the rest of the sauce. The texture is also a big factor. Leaving the tomato skin in the sauce may be fine if you like the variety of textures it adds. Sauces made using skinless tomatoes tend to have a more constant smooth texture. 
In case you're wondering if you should peel tomatoes, the answer is yes, and I have included some helpful hints on how to do it. Tomatoes with their skins still on are perfectly fine to use whether cooking or eating in a sandwich. Certain cancers, heart disease, and other illnesses may be avoided with the help of antioxidants. A whole tomato will stay together better in the cooking process if you leave the skin on. For what reason does salt enhance the flavor of tomatoes? To make tomatoes more palatable, salt can be added to their preparation. When compared to an unsalted tomato, which can be somewhat bland, a salted tomato has a slightly robust and sweet flavor. It's true that adding salt to any dish will make the flavor pop. No matter what you're making, from french fries to bread, omitting the salt can drastically change the flavor. When added to tomatoes, salt enhances their flavor in the mouth. You'll notice an increase in salivation when you put some salt on your tongue. You'll get a better taste of the tomato because the saliva will help carry the flavor to all of your taste buds. A tomato will undergo osmosis when salt is added to it. The salt causes the cells to excrete more water. Tomatoes with salt on them are less juicy but more delicious. Your taste buds will perceive less bitterness and more sweetness after tasting salt. You may find salt in almost any baked delicacy, from cookies to chocolate to bread. Also, don't leave off the salted caramel!