A really simple tomato sauce with pasta is a pretty wonderful thing. But as is so often the case, ‘simple’ is not necessarily ‘easy’. But in this case, you are in luck, as this sauce is both, although it does require 40 minutes on a low simmer to get the flavours working.
This recipe is not just a tomato sauce for pasta though – you can also use it on your homemade pizza base, before topping with grated cheese.
Jump to RecipeTinned tomatoes
I buy chopped tinned tomatoes for this recipe (you need two cans), but you can use your tinned tomato of preference (whole, chopped, cherry, etc).
And apart from tomatoes, all you need are onions, garlic and olive oil.
Simply sautéed
Chop up a couple of red onions and sauté them slowly in a decent amount of olive oil (you need enough to cover the bottom of the pan) until they are soft but not coloured. Add 4 whole, peeled cloves of garlic to the pan, your two tins of tomatoes, plus some water which you have used to rinse out your tins.
Cook for around 40 minutes until reduced, crush up the now soft garlic cloves with a fork, season with salt and pepper, and stir into cooked pasta.
Plenty for the freezer
This amount of sauce would coat enough pasta for four people, leaving you with some extra to freeze for another time, which in my view is always a good thing. I have even frozen the sauce and cooked pasta together, and when defrosted it has still turned out very well.
Serving suggestion
Although this simple tomato sauce for pasta is perfect on its own (especially for meat free Monday), I do love mine topped with fat juicy sautéed prawns.
Simple tomato sauce for pasta
Ingredients
- 2 red onions large
- 4 cloves garlic
- olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan
- 2 cans (400g) chopped tomatoes
- 400 ml water
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cover the bottom of your pan with olive oil, and add the chopped red onion. Allow it to soften for around ten minutes on a low heat, but do not colour the onion.
- Add the whole cloves of garlic to the onion and oil mixture, and the two tins of chopped tomatoes, along with some water (I rinse the cans with this water to get all of the tomatoes out of the tin).
- Cook on a medium heat for around 40 minutes. At the end of the cooking time the liquid will have reduced and you will be left with a deep red sauce.
- Crush the softened garlic cloves in the sauce to mix them in, and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve over cooked pasta.