Tomato Sauces
Cooking Skills: Pasta 1
Chapter 3 · Tomato Sauces
Skill goal
Make good tomato sauces from a tin and store-cupboard flavours, and toss pasta in them properly.
Shopping list for this chapter
The basics
A good tomato sauce is a balance of four things: sweetness (from the tomatoes and a little carrot or sugar), acidity (from the tomatoes themselves), salt and fat (olive oil). If the sauce tastes sharp, it needs more time, a pinch of sugar or a little more oil. If it tastes flat, it probably needs salt. Simmering evaporates the water, so the flavour concentrates and the sauce thickens.
| Tomato | What it is like | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Tinned chopped tomatoes | Convenient, already in small pieces | Quick sauces, everyday use |
| Tinned whole plum tomatoes | Often better quality; crush them yourself | Slow sauces, bigger flavour |
| Passata | Sieved and smooth, thin | Smooth sauces, pizza, soups |
| Tomato purée | Concentrated paste | A spoonful adds depth to any sauce |
| Fresh tomatoes | Best only when ripe and in season | Summer sauces, cherry tomato sauces |
- Tinned tomatoes are very good. They are picked ripe and canned straight away. Out of season they are often better than fresh.
- Cook garlic gently. Browned or burnt garlic is bitter, and it ruins the sauce. Warm oil, not hot.
- Simmer uncovered so the water can escape. The sauce is ready when you can draw a spoon across the pan and the trail stays open for a second.
- Add the basil at the end. Its flavour is delicate, and long cooking destroys it.
- Finish the pasta in the sauce (chapter 2), with a splash of cooking water.
Try it
Level 1 · Start here
Quick tomato sauce
A tin of tomatoes, some garlic and oil: the sauce that most Italian cooks make a hundred times a year. Fifteen minutes of simmering turns tinned tomatoes from sharp and watery into sweet and thick.
Ingredients (2 portions)
- 150 g dried spaghetti or penne (75 g per portion)
- 400 g tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 1 pinch sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 4 basil leaves, torn
- Warm the oil in a medium frying pan over a low heat. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds, until fragrant but not coloured.
- Pour in the tomatoes, add the sugar and salt and bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, stirring now and then, for 15 minutes, pressing the lumps with a spoon, until the sauce has thickened and no watery liquid pools round the edge.
- Meanwhile, boil the pasta in salted water for the packet time minus 1 minute. Scoop out a mugful of the cooking water and drain.
- Tip the pasta into the sauce with 3 tablespoons of the cooking water. Toss over a medium heat for 1 minute, until the sauce clings to the pasta. Stir in the basil.
How much sauce?
About 150 ml (a large ladleful) per 75 g portion of pasta. A good sauce coats the pasta; it doesn't swim in a puddle.
Level 2 · Slow
Slow tomato and basil sauce
Cooking the vegetables first and the tomatoes for longer gives a sweeter, rounder, deeper sauce. It makes a batch, so freeze the extra portions.
Ingredients (4 portions)
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1 carrot, grated
- 1 celery stick, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, sliced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 800 g tinned whole plum tomatoes (2 tins)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 pinch sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 handful of basil leaves
- Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium-low heat. Add the onion, carrot and celery with a pinch of salt and cook gently for 10 minutes, until soft but not coloured. Add the garlic for the last minute.
- Tip in the tomatoes and crush them against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon or by hand. Add the bay leaf, sugar and the rest of the salt.
- Simmer gently, partly covered, for 40 minutes, stirring now and then, until thick and glossy.
- Remove the bay leaf, add the basil and, if you want a smooth sauce, blend with a stick blender. Taste and adjust the salt.
- To serve, toss with freshly cooked pasta as in the quick sauce (about 150 ml of sauce per 75 g of pasta). Cool the rest quickly, divide into portions and freeze.
Freezing sauce
Cool the sauce quickly (stand the pan in a sink of cold water), divide it into freezer tubs or bags, and put it in the freezer within about 2 hours. Label with the date. It keeps for 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat until steaming hot, or simmer it from frozen in a pan with a splash of water.
Level 2 · Spicy
Arrabbiata
Quick tomato sauce with more garlic and a good kick of chilli. The only skill is judging the heat: chilli gets hotter as it cooks.
Ingredients (2 portions)
- 150 g dried penne (75 g per portion)
- 400 g tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves, sliced
- ½ tsp dried chilli flakes (or 1 fresh red chilli, chopped)
- 1 pinch sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
- Warm the oil over a low heat, then add the garlic and chilli and cook for 30 seconds. Don't let the garlic brown.
- Add the tomatoes, sugar and salt, bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes until thick.
- Boil the penne, drain (saving some water) and toss in the sauce with 3 tablespoons of the cooking water for 1 minute. Scatter with parsley.
Level 3 · Bold
Puttanesca
A sauce of strong flavours: anchovies, capers and olives. The anchovies melt away into the sauce and leave savoury depth, not fishiness. Everything is salty, so you rarely need to add any salt.
Ingredients (2 portions)
- 150 g dried spaghetti (75 g per portion)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, sliced
- 4 anchovy fillets in oil (optional), chopped
- 1 tbsp capers, rinsed
- 40 g pitted black olives, halved
- ½ tsp dried chilli flakes
- 400 g tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
- Warm the oil over a low heat. Add the garlic and anchovies and stir for 1 minute, until the anchovies dissolve. (Skip them if you prefer: see the tip.)
- Add the capers, olives and chilli, then the tomatoes. Simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes until thick.
- Boil the spaghetti, drain, and toss in the sauce with 3 tablespoons of the cooking water for 1 minute. Taste before you add any salt, then scatter with parsley.
No anchovies?
Leave them out and add 1 extra tablespoon of capers and a teaspoon of the brine from the jar of olives for the missing savoury depth. It's a different dish but still very good.
Experiments
Experiment
Tinned or fresh tomatoes
Is fresh really better?
- Make the quick sauce twice: once with a tin of tomatoes and once with 400 g of ripe fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped (peel them first if you like by scoring a cross in the base, covering with boiling water for 30 seconds and peeling).
- Simmer the fresh version for 20 to 25 minutes until it breaks down.
- Taste both, plain and tossed with pasta.
Look for: In summer, ripe tomatoes can be wonderful. Out of season, they are watery and bland. Is the fresh version better, or is the tin more reliable?
Experiment
10, 20 and 40 minutes
See what simmering actually does.
- Make the slow sauce (or a double quantity of the quick one). Spoon out a small portion at 10 minutes, another at 20 minutes and a third at 40 minutes.
- Taste each warm, and compare how thick and how sweet they are.
Look for: The 10-minute sauce is thin and sharp, the 40-minute sauce is thick, sweet and rounded. Is the extra half hour worth it on a weeknight?
Experiment
With or without the vegetables
What do the onion and carrot add?
- Make half the slow sauce recipe, with the onion, carrot and celery, and make the quick sauce (no vegetables) for comparison. Use the same tomatoes and the same simmering time.
- Taste them side by side.
Look for: The vegetables add sweetness and body, and soften the acidity. If you prefer a clean tomato taste, the quick sauce wins.
Tasting notes
| What I tried | Method or amount | What I saw | What I thought | Will I do it again? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quick tomato sauce | ||||
| Slow tomato and basil | ||||
| Arrabbiata | ||||
| Puttanesca | ||||
| Tinned vs fresh | ||||
| 10, 20 and 40 minutes | ||||
| With vs without vegetables |
Troubleshooting
| Problem | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Sauce tastes sharp or acidic | Not cooked long enough, or acidic tomatoes | Simmer longer; add a pinch of sugar or some grated carrot |
| Sauce is watery and pools on the plate | Not reduced enough | Simmer uncovered until a spoon leaves a trail |
| Sauce is bland | Not enough salt, or tomatoes poor quality | Add salt, a splash of olive oil and a little tomato purée |
| Bitter taste | Burnt garlic, or too much tomato purée | Cook garlic only until fragrant, and start again if it browned |
| Sauce too thick | Over-reduced, or it stood | Loosen with pasta cooking water |
| Splattering sauce | Simmering too hard | Lower the heat; use a splatter guard or a partly covered pan |
Food safety: sauces
Cool leftover sauce quickly, keep it in the fridge for no more than 2 days, or freeze it. Reheat until steaming hot. Hot tomato sauce spits and burns, so stir from the side of the pan and keep your sleeves clear of the hob. Cooked pasta is a starchy food, and like rice it can grow bacteria if it is left warm. There is no pasta-specific official guidance, so this course uses the cautious rule: cool it quickly (within about an hour), put it in the fridge, and eat it within 24 hours; freeze it if you won't. Reheat until steaming hot all the way through.
Checkpoint: can you do this now?
- I can make a tomato sauce from a tin in 15 minutes.
- I know how to balance acidity, sweetness and salt.
- I can tell when a sauce is thick enough.
- I can make a big batch and freeze it safely.
- I can finish pasta in a sauce so it clings.
Next chapter
Cooking Skills: Pasta 1, chapter 4 is Oil and Garlic Sauces: finishing pasta in the pan with its starchy cooking water, from aglio e olio to courgette and lemon.