If there’s a single recipe that captures my goal of eating well with ease, it’s pasta with tomato butter sauce. It’s one of the standby meals that I make often because it’s fast, easy, and delicious.
Adapted from the acclaimed recipe in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan, Tomato Butter Sauce is amazing in its simplicity. Canned whole tomatoes transform into a savory sauce, showcasing the rich umami quality of tomatoes.
Sure you could jazz it up with herbs or aromatics. But this sauce is all about butter and tomatoes. The result is a balance of sweet and savory with a lush richness.
Onion plays a role, halved and simmered in the sauce. Some versions suggest discarding it after cooking. But the onion retains a mild sweetness and crisp bite. It works well as an optional garnish, diced and sprinkled on the sauced pasta along with some parm. I keep any remaining onion in the refrigerator to use in another dish.
Delicious on its own for a quick pasta meal, the sauce is also easily adaptable. I often roast Italian sausages while sauce is simmering for my favorite rigatoni pairing. Meatballs are right at home on a pile of spaghetti. Likewise for chicken parm.
The sauce thickens up as it simmers, but adding a bit of pasta cooking water while tossing with pasta yields the right consistency. I enjoy the small chunks of tomato that remain after manually breaking up the tomatoes during cooking. But occasionally I’ll use an immersion blender to smooth it out a bit.
In summer, when homegrown or farmers market tomatoes are abundant, I make a version of this recipe with roasted fresh tomatoes. Roasting ripe tomatoes makes it extra special. But there’s really no better use for canned whole tomatoes than this quick stovetop version.
Tomato Butter Sauce
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
- 1 medium onion cut in half through the root end
- 1/4 teaspoon salt plus more to taste
- 1 (28 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes
- pinch sugar as needed
Instructions
- Add butter, onion, and salt to a large sauté pan over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, cook for another minute to soften onion a little bit.
- Add canned tomatoes and their liquid to the sauté pan. Use a flat wooden spoon to start breaking up the tomatoes. Bring tomato-butter mixture to a slow simmer, stirring frequently.
- Continue to break up the tomatoes as the sauce simmers. Cook at a very low simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until sauce is silky and thickened.
- Taste the sauce, adding more salt and/or a pinch of sugar if desired.
- Remove the onion. Refrigerate for another use or dice a portion of the cooked onion to use as topping on pasta if desired.
- There's enough sauce for 1 pound of dry pasta. I like to use half the sauce immediately on 1/2 pound pasta and freeze the remaining half for another meal.
- To serve, combine tomato butter sauce with cooked pasta, tossing well and adding spoonfuls of pasta cooking water if desired to achieve preferred consistency. Garnish with freshly grated parmesan.
Notes
- Some versions of this recipe suggest discarding the onion when the sauce is done. But the onion retains a lovely mild sweetness and a crisp bite. I like to dice some of the cooked onion and sprinkle it on the sauced pasta. I keep any remaining onion in the refrigerator to use in another dish.
- If I’ve got a large enough onion, I try to cut it through the root end into 3 pieces, to maximize the amount of the onion that is submerged in the tomato butter sauce as it cooks. Regardless, I turn the onions over once or twice as the sauce cooks, to encourage more even cooking and hopefully more onion flavor in the sauce.
- Tomato butter sauce is delicious on its own, but also very adaptable. Garnish with fresh basil for a burst of flavor and color. I like to roast Italian sausages while sauce is cooking for a juicy embellishment without too much more effort.
