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Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter
Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

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Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

Online recipe · as published / commonly shared

Servings: 6 · Prep time 15 minutes · Total time 60 minutes

We wrote this recipe in the Joy of Cooking style. Every amount, time and step comes from the source's recipe card.

Marcella Hazan's four-ingredient tomato sauce from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. The onion flavors the sauce and comes out before serving.

Put in a saucepan either the prepared fresh tomatoes or the canned:

2 pounds fresh, ripe tomatoes or 2 cups canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice

Add:

5 tablespoons butter

1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half

Salt

Cook uncovered at a very slow, but steady simmer. Cook for 45 minutes, or until the fat floats free from the tomato. Stir from time to time. Mash any large piece of tomato in the pan with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and correct for salt. Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with:

1 to 1½ pounds pasta

Recommended pasta

This is an unsurpassed sauce for Potato Gnocchi, but it is also delicious with factory-made pasta in such shapes as spaghetti, penne, or rigatoni. Serve with grated Parmesan.

For the table:

Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese for the table

Note: You may freeze the sauce when done. Discard the onion before freezing.

Citations

Cookbook ancestor

Affiliate: buy the book

Reference: Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan (1992). Publisher: Knopf, 2022 edition, hardcover, ISBN 978-0593534328.

We put this together for personal use. See the citations. This is not a cookbook reprint.