Pasta with tomato sauce: a handful of ingredients, 25 minutes, a sauce like Italy's
The dinner that rescues any evening: tomato passata simmered a quarter of an hour on garlic and olive oil, butter at the end for velvet, and pasta dropped straight from the pot into the sauce with a splash of its cooking water. That last step is the difference between pasta with sauce poured over it and pasta in sauce. All it takes is a handful of ingredients you usually have in the house.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Sauce 17 min
- Pasta 8 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneSoften the garlic
Put a large pot of water on for the pasta. Slice the garlic thinly and warm it in the olive oil over low heat with the chilli 2 minutes, until lightly golden and fragrant. It must not brown: burnt garlic is bitter.
Ingredients: 700 ml tomato passata · 3 cloves garlic · 3 tbsp olive oil · 30 g butter · 1 tsp sugar · 1 tsp salt · ¼ tsp chilli flakes · 1 tsp dried oregano
Slices, low heat, barely goldenPour in the passata
Add the passata, salt, sugar and oregano. The sugar isn't there to sweeten but to balance the tomatoes' acidity; a teaspoon is enough.
Passata, salt, a teaspoon of sugarSimmer and add the butter
Simmer the sauce over medium heat, uncovered, 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until it thickens and darkens. Add the butter and stir in: butter rounds off the acid and gives the sauce a gloss.
TipShop passata can be watery and sharp; 15 minutes of reduction is the minimum for it to taste like tomatoes rather than juice. Don't cut it short.
A quarter hour uncovered, then butterCook the pasta a minute short
While the sauce simmers, drop the pasta into the boiling, well-salted water and cook it a minute less than the packet says. Before draining, scoop out a cup of the cooking water.
Ingredients: 400 g spaghetti or penne · 1 bunch fresh basil · 50 g parmesan · 1 tbsp salt
A minute short, a cup of water savedFinish in the sauce
Move the pasta with tongs straight into the pan of sauce, add half a cup of the cooking water and toss vigorously over medium heat 1–2 minutes, until the sauce thickens and clings to every strand. Too thick? More water. Take off the heat, add torn basil.
TipPasta water carries starch that binds sauce and pasta into one; without it the sauce slides to the bottom of the plate. This is the most important step of any pasta.
Pasta water, vigorous tossingServe
At once, with grated parmesan and a basil leaf. The sauce can be made ahead: it keeps 4 days in the fridge and 3 months in the freezer.
Parmesan, basil, immediately
Before you start
With meat
200 g minced meat browned before the garlic: a quick meat sauce. Or 150 g sliced smoked sausage, the Polish way.
From fresh tomatoes
In summer 1 kg ripe tomatoes, scalded, peeled and chopped, instead of passata; simmer 25 minutes. Sweeter, lighter.
Creamy
3 tablespoons of whipping cream (30%) or a tablespoon of mascarpone at the end: a pink sauce children eat without argument.
