Being half Italian I get asked quite a lot what’s the best tomato sauce recipe, usually followed by…”you know the tomato sauce how they do it in Italy”, and it always makes me smile when people say it like Italians had a TOP secret way of making tomato sauce.
The truth is that in Italy tomato sauce is done in August when tomatoes are in season and in their pick time, and is this freshness and ripeness that makes tomato sauce so delicious and memorable! specially of our holidays in Italy.
Of course in the UK we don’t have the luxury of amazing weather to grow tomatoes like in Italy, more so if we live in cities when sometimes even finding relative decent tomatoes is like going in search of the holly grail!
So to have some sort of tomato sauce I had to compromise and found a shop bought “passata” decent enough to make a good tomato sauce without having to add sugar to balance the acidity. I use Tesco’s Organic Italian Passata which I show here.
This is the only passata that I can say you don’t need to add sugar and that does taste good enough to make a good basic tomato sauce for pasta, pizza, meatballs or even chicken.
So without further do, here’s my 15 Minute Tomato Sauce Recipe
PRINT THE RECIPE
- 500 gr of Italian Passata I use Tesco's Organic Italian Passata
- A handful of fresh Basil
- 2 Medium gloves of garlic optional
- 1 pinch of dried chillies optional
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil optional
- 1 tsp Salt
-
To a warm pot add the olive oil, passata, garlic, salt, chillies and fresh basil
-
Cook for 15 minutes at medium heat stirring occasionally.
Other Options for this Tomato Sauce Recipe
You can use this recipe as the basis for other tomato sauce recipes, for example:
Tomato Sauce for Pizza
Add good quality dried oregano to make the traditional Napolitan tomato sauce for pizza
Tomato Sauce for Pasta
This recipe is the authentic Italian way of making tomato sauce (without the chillies), however, if you would like to add a bit of umphhh how about adding some Calabrian ‘Nduja, a spicy and smoked cured meat from Calabria
Tomato Sauce for Chicken
For chicken not only add the fresh Basil but also add a couple of Rosemary leaves, dried chillies and a pinch of smoked Paprika.
If you like this recipe, please share with the word!
