The best homemade pasta sauce is simple, impressive and so so tasty. This is the rare recipe post that has a backstory.
Last New Years, we went to a small town in Southern Italy called Nova Siri. B and I flew from Kansas City to Chicago to London to Rome to Bari.
Growing up, I thought the best pasta sauce on the planet was Cascone’s. It was a uniform texture, sweet and tomato-y. I would drench my pasta in the sauce and proceed to add copious amounts of the green canister parmesan.
As I got older, the range of what constituted a good pasta sauce changed. It was one with lots of meat, or another with strong garlic and herb smell… I had a phase in college with a large Costco size jar of multi-purpose seasoning. That was what constituted good sauce.
Good pasta sauce should be good on its own. The pasta and toppings should enhance the sauce not the other way around.
I found my perfect sauce last year. It highlighted the vibrancy and acidity of the tomatoes while also being savory.
Cue That’s Amore by Dean Martin.
The Best Sauce on Arrival
After 28 hours of traveling and almost missing two fights. I found it. B and I were meeting up with friends for New Year’s Eve in one of our friend’s hometown in southern Italy called Nova Siri.
Let me tell you Italian hospitality is REAL. My friend’s and friend’s family picked us up at an airport over an hour away from their home at 11 PM. Bleary-eyed and jet-lagged as fuck, we arrived at their house past midnight. Papa and Mama Gabriele rolled out the red carpet – or rather a red table cloth- for us. Immediately, bringing out pasta with red sauce for us to eat.
At first, I didn’t want to eat it. My body was wiped. It was screaming at me it was 3 PM. I hadn’t slept in 20 hours. The last thing I wanted was to eat pasta.
Thank god I did.
It was a come-to-Jesus moment. I had never had pasta sauce like this before. It was savory, crisp, bright and the tomato flavor was perfect.
This is my take on that pasta with red sauce.
Easy Homemade Pasta Sauce AKA The Most Tasty Pasta (MTP)
Equipment
- Two Medium Pots
Ingredients
- 28 oz Canned Whole Peeled Tomatoes Two smaller cans or one large one
- 1 Yellow Onion cut in half
- 5 Tbsp Unsalted Butter cubed
- 1 lb Pasta I like either spaghetti or angel hair
- Kosher salt
- Parmesan for finishing
Instructions
- Take a large sauce pan or pot and dump in: tomatoes, butter, and onion. Season lightly with salt.
- Set heat to medium-low. You want the sauce to start to simmer (small gentle bubbles.)
- We’re going to let it gently simmer for 45 mins. Initially, set a timer for 30 minutes. Throughout the simmering, stir with a wooden spoon. Mash the tomatoes up. Eventually, the onion will start to fall apart! That is a’ok! In fact, we want that to happen. Stir it occasionally.
- Once the 30-minute timer goes off, prepare an additional pot of salted water to cook the pasta in. Start with a teaspoon of salt in the water. You the water to taste slightly salty. Cook pasta according to package.
- Generally, once the pasta is done so is the sauce.
- Drain the pasta, mix it with the sauce and top it with fresh Parmesan!
Leave a Reply