This basic tomato sauce for pasta is something that I learned to cook very early on as a student. The tomato sauce for pasta was always referred to as boring sauce in our household, but it doesn’t have to be. Tomatoes are really healthy as they are full of lycopene which is super good for you. The ingredients are basic but as you get more advanced, you can add extra vegetables like peppers and courgettes for a more sunshine flavour. Chicken, ham, cheese and canned tuna can all be added to the sauce to give it a change of flavour.
Chopped onions and garlic sauted gently form the basis of the sauce, then add the tinned tomatoes and a teaspoon of mixed herbs to give an extra bit of Mediterranean flavour. Add the pasta and top with grated cheese for a quick, cheap and nutritious meal.
Ingredients
Olive oil or other vegetable cooking oil – a glug for frying the onions
Medium or large onion, finely diced
Clove of garlic or more if you like it garlicky
400g can of chopped tomatoes. Use whole ones if that’s all you have and mash them up in the pan
Optional extras:
Salt and pepper to season
Pinch of sugar/sweetner to lift the sauce
Method
Firstly, if you are having pasta, place a big pan full of water on the stove top to boil. Dried pasta takes about 10 minutes to cook. Allow 75g per person or as much as the instuctions on the packet suggest. When you add the tomatoes to the recipe and assuming the water is boiling, you can add the dried pasta. The aim is to finish cooking the pasta and sauce simultaneously.
To make the sauce, put a medium sized saucepan on a low heat. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and the chopped onion and crushed or finely chopped garlic. Stir well and leave to sweat for 10 minutes or so. Most recipes claim you can cook an onion out in 2 minutes. You can’t – they need time to cook down and the longer you can leave them, the better. Open and add the canned tomatoes and cook through for another ten minutes. That is your basic sauce. Stir in the cooked pasta and serve with grated cheese, either cheddar or parmesan and seasoning (salt and pepper).
Now you have the basic tomato sauce for pasta, you can play around with the ingredients. Add peppers and courgettes already cooked with the tomatoes. If they need cooking first, fry them with the onions then continue as before. Cooked chicken, turkey, ham and tuna fish can make the sauce more substantial.
Any leftovers can be packed for lunch tomorrow, refrigerated and eaten cold the day after as a pasta salad.
If you like this recipe, you might like my macaroni cheese https://cookingwithfi.com/macaroni-cheese-recipe/