Looking for a quick and easy simple tomato pasta sauce recipe? Read on for the most delicious simple pasta sauce for your next lunch or quick dinner.

simple tomato sauce

Andrea’s dad Massimo taught me this recipe for tomato pasta sauce the first time he and Andrea’s mum Federica came over to our apartment for dinner. He brought some bottles of delicious tomato passata, pecorino AND Parmigiano-Reggiano, some garlic, basil and of course a good quality pasta. He told me he wanted to teach me an easy sugo that I could make when we live in Australia one day and remember this moment. He said you don’t need much money to make this, or much time, but these few little tricks will take this dish to the buonissimo level.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 garlic cloves
  • Olive oil
  • Salt
  • Tin of tomatoes / bottle of tomato pulp
  • Small handful of grated pecorino cheese
  • Small handful of grated parmigiano-reggiano
  • 3-4 basil leaves
  • 300g short pasta

Method:

  1. Begin by warming up the olive oil in a wide based saucepan. When warm, throw in the unsliced cloves of garlic. Tilt the pan by moving the handle upwards and concentrating the oil and garlic directly over the flame. In this way the garlic will infuse the oil and you can remove the garlic after a few minutes to make it lighter on the stomach.
  2. At the same time get a big pot of water boiling for your pasta. Remove the garlic from the saucepan and add in your tomatoes along with a pinch of salt and sugar as per your taste.
  3. Once the pasta water is at a rolling boil, throw in a handful of rock salt. Wait for one minute until the water returns to the boil (adding in the salt reduces the water temperature). Put your pasta into the pot to cook.
  4. Add the cheeses to your sauce and stir in- it should thicken up nicely. You can add in a few spoonfuls of the pasta cooking water to loosen it too.
  5. Just before the pasta is cooked add in your basil leaves to the sugo.
  6. Once the pasta is cooked, remove from the boiling water and add directly to the saucepan with your sauce and toss.

And that’s it. Such a simple, easy pasta recipe but very delicious! Looking for more Italian recipes? Check out my collection here. If you’re looking for a way to use up fresh summer tomatoes, I recommend Emiko Davies’ recipe on her blog.

Buon appetito xo