Don't Like Sliced Tomatoes? Slather Your BLTs With Tomato Sauce Instead
For folks who don't like the taste of raw tomatoes, eating can sometimes feel like you're on the outside looking in as you observe others enjoying foods like caprese and BLTs. With a BLT, you can eighty-six the tomatoes, but then you're just eating a bacon and lettuce sandwich, which doesn't have the same appeal as its tomato-integrated counterpart. Thankfully, if fresh tomatoes give you a visceral reaction when you see them on a plate, a great way to enjoy a fully realized BLT is to add a tomato sauce spread.
If it's only raw tomatoes that aren't your thing, a store-bought pasta sauce you find appealing is all you need. You can elevate your tomato sauce by adding seasonings of your choice, but you do want to be mindful of the consistency. Thinner tomato sauces can seep into the bread, creating a soggy texture, but thicker varieties with chunks of tomato will hold up better in the sandwich.
For complete confidence that your sandwich won't become a mushy mess, consider frying the bread. Using some of the leftover bacon grease to boost the bread's structural integrity will allow it to take on a hearty tomato sauce while enhancing the texture of your BLT. The grease will also impart a savory flavor that will bump the taste factor up a notch.
Why some don't like raw tomatoes
Many people who detest raw tomatoes have no objection to a nice tomato sauce. The reason fresh tomatoes are objectionable to some stems from the vegetable's makeup. One little-known fact about tomatoes is that they contain about 400 chemical compounds that all affect the taste of the vegetable. Some theorize that the reason some can't stand the taste of raw tomatoes is that certain people are simply more sensitive to some of these chemicals within a tomato. Another theory posits that glutamic acid and sulfur compounds in tomatoes may be the culprits that put some people off. Together, the smell of these chemicals can resemble the scent of meat to some, which can be understandably off-putting when you're about to bite into a vegetable.
Should tomatoes in any form be offensive to you, a vegetable sauce sans tomatoes might be more to your liking. A roasted red pepper sauce can be a tasty substitute for tomatoes. However, if you have sensitivities to nightshades, peppers won't be an option. There are plenty of varieties of faux tomato sauces for the nightshade intolerant that use beets and carrots as a base, livening up the flavor with onions, garlic, and various seasonings. There's no reason to contemplate chowing down on an unfinished BLT when you have a cornucopia of sauce options to create a complete sandwich.