There has never been an easy pasta sauce recipe easier than Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce — on this, you have my word. And what’s better is that just because this pasta sauce is easy doesn’t mean it’s not delicious. Keep reading for instructions on how to throw this yummy sauce together!
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I teach cooking classes locally quite often. Normally, I love to teach the recipes that I learned while living in Italy, including my homemade pasta, cacio e pepe, and tiramisu. However, this is one dish that I teach that I didn’t actually learn while living in Italy.
I learned the base of this recipe when I returned from Italy and was listening to the Splendid Table Podcast while driving.
The Splendid Table was promoting Marcella Hazan’s famous easy pasta sauce recipe made with only four ingredients. It’s a classic recipe in her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking book. The way the podcast hosts had talked about it made the dish sound so desirable, so I went home and made it that night. I didn’t even need to go to the grocery store!
Marcella Hazan is a genius. Somehow, the three main ingredients in this sauce combine to make a delicate but robust pasta sauce that is thin but still creamy, and sweet with a little bit of tang. Are you intrigued?
This recipe is probably the most famous tomato sauce across the internet, receiving rave reviews, and once you give it a try you are sure to see why. This delicious tomato sauce is the best pasta sauce for a simple weeknight meal.
What is the Secret Ingredient in this Spaghetti Sauce?
The scoop behind how to make Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce is the secret ingredient; and it’s one that not a lot of people would think to put in their pasta sauce: butter.
When you simmer the butter for 45 minutes alongside the tomatoes and the onion, the elements of each food work together to complement one another.
The fat in the butter breaks down the acidity in the tomatoes, turning the pasta sauce sweeter over time, and the butter’s sweet caramelized flavor adds to the depth of the tomatoes. It’s incredible! With very little ingredients or stirring, this pasta sauce is suddenly gourmet. Gotta love food science.
Why You Should Make This Recipe
- Simple Ingredients: Honestly, you could probably make this recipe right now with ingredients you have in your refrigerator or pantry. Simple canned tomatoes, onion, and butter are all you need.
- Simple Preparation: You don’t even have to cut the onion to add it to this sauce. Everything goes into the pot together, simmers, and comes out as magic.
- Versatile Recipe: This recipe is a minimalist tomato sauce but its simplicity makes it very versatile. It’s perfect over meatballs or with your favorite homemade pasta. It won’t necessarily replace your favorite marinara sauce or meat sauce, but it’s a delicious recipe to have in your back pocket.
What Ingredients are in this Easy Pasta Sauce?
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.
- Canned Tomatoes: I use Petite Diced size. You could also use fresh tomatoes. Look for good tomatoes like San Marzano tomatoes or fresh plum tomatoes. Make sure to peel, core, and dice them before adding to the recipe.
- Butter: You can use salted or unsalted, but I think that unsalted butter gives you a better opportunity to control the salt in the recipe.
- Onion: A sweet onion is best!
- Seasonings: Salt, Black Pepper, Dried Basil, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder
The tomatoes, butter, and onion are part of the original Marcella Hazan Tomato Sauce. The seasonings added are of my design and quantities.
How to Make This Recipe
Step One: Peel the onion
Peel and halve your onion.
Step Two: Combine and simmer
Combine the tomatoes and butter in a pot with the halved onion and bring to a steady simmer over low heat, uncovered for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon.
Remove onion, add a generous pinch of salt, and serve this simple Marcella Hazan tomato sauce over your favorite pasta with some fresh parmesan cheese or Parmigiano Reggiano.
Yeah. That’s it. For full ingredient measurements and instructions to make this recipe, visit the recipe card at the bottom of this page!
Expert Tips for Making Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce
- The simplicity of this recipe demands high-quality ingredients. Don’t try to substitute the butter or use bargain brand tomatoes. Stick to the good stuff for the best final product.
- The cooking process is another secret to this recipe. Low and slow is the name of the game.
- As long as you stick to the core, high-quality ingredients you can switch up this sauce however you want. You could use leeks instead of onion or add some roasted cloves of garlic, black pepper, red pepper flakes or fresh herbs. The sky’s the limit!
- Feel free to play with the texture of your sauce. You could enjoy it as it or use a potato masher or food processor for a thinner sauce. If you like large pieces of tomato, use whole tomatoes.
- It is possible to use fresh, whole tomatoes for Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce but it takes a little more prep work and you may want to finish the sauce with an immersion blender.
Using Fresh Herbs vs Dried Herbs
You can use fresh herbs/garlic in your tomato sauce if you’d like. That might even be preferable. I like that I can make this sauce whenever I need to because all of the ingredients are just things I have on hand. Fresh basil, on the other hand, is something that I buy only when I need it.
If you’d like to substitute fresh basil for dry basil, you are more than welcome to! Either way, make sure to not simmer your herbs for more than 45 minutes. Leaving herbs to simmer on the stovetop for an extended period can lead to your sauce becoming bitter.
If you plan to simmer your sauce for a while, take care to only add the herbs when you have 15 minutes left to go.
What Kind of Canned Tomatoes Do I Use?
I’ve experimented with many kinds of canned tomatoes and finally decided on the fact that diced tomatoes are my favorite with this recipe.
The first time I tried this recipe, I used whole, peeled tomatoes. The flavor of the sauce was still delicious, but I didn’t like the texture. It just didn’t get saucy enough for me.
I also tried crushed, which allowed the sauce to become very thin and saucy. I liked this way, but my favorite is diced, petite diced to be exact. Diced tomatoes are a happy medium between the two aforementioned varieties, and I like the texture this way the best. If you don’t like chunky sauce, use crushed tomatoes.
As for the brand on the can of tomatoes, that is up to personal preference. Try a few and find your favorite for this easy tomato sauce recipe.
What Do I Do with the Onion?
Once the sauce finishes simmering, you’ll have a beautifully cooked and sweetened full-onion on your hands. Marcella Hazan’s original instructions are to remove and discard the onion. You can do so if you’d like, but you also have a few other options.
If you love chunky sauce, you can remove the onion halves from the sauce, cut it up into small pieces, and return it to the sauce. You will then have small chunks of sweet onion in your sauce. Mmmmm.
If you don’t want chunks of onion in your sauce but you don’t want to get rid of your delicious onion, you can remove and reserve the whole onion. This is what I do. I keep the onion in a Tupperware container in my fridge and then use it in other recipes over the next few days. My favorite options are to put it on sandwiches or chop it up into scrambled eggs in the morning.
How Do You Get Spaghetti Sauce to Stick to the Noodles?
This question isn’t specific to this easy pasta sauce recipe. You can take this advice and apply it to any pasta recipe you make at home!
My biggest piece of advice would be to not rinse your noodles after you take them out of the water. Boiling in hot water allows the starches to be released from the pasta and create a starchy coating on the noodles. This starch allows the sauce to stick to the pasta more easily!
If you make this recipe, make sure to post a photo on Instagram or Facebook and tag @TheForeignFork or hashtag #TheForeignFork.
Did you enjoy this easy pasta sauce recipe? Make sure to check out my other recipes for pasta dishes including:
Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce
Equipment
- Pot(s)
Ingredients
- 28 oz petite diced tomatoes
- ¾ tsp kosher salt
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 small white onion, peeled and halved
- ½ tsp black pepper, optional
- ½ tbsp dry basil, optional
- ½ tsp onion powder, optional
- ½ tsp garlic powder, optional
Instructions
- Combine the 28 oz petite diced tomatoes, ¾ tsp kosher salt, and the optional spices (½ tsp black pepper, ½ tbsp dry basil, ½ tsp onion powder and ½ tsp garlic powder) in a medium pan over low-medium heat. Mix to evenly distribute the spices.
- Add the 6 tbsp unsalted butter and 1 small white onion into the sauce.
- Leave uncovered and allow the sauce to simmer for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow the sauce to slightly bubble, but take care to not let it burn.
- Before serving, remove the onions. You can cut the onions up and add them back into the sauce if you’d like, though this makes the sauce a bit chunkier. I opt to keep the onions out of the sauce but reserve the onions for things like adding to scrambled eggs, sandwiches, tacos, etc.
- Use an immersion blender to make the sauce smoother if desired. Serve and enjoy!
Notes
- The optional spices are not part of Marcella Hazan’s original recipe. Her recipe just calls for the tomatoes, butter, onions, and salt. However, I like them so I wanted to give you the option to add them if you desire!
- Canned Tomatoes: I use Petite Diced size. You could also use canned crushed tomatoes or fresh tomatoes. Look for good tomatoes like San Marzano tomatoes or fresh plum tomatoes. If using fresh tomatoes, make sure to peel, core, and dice them before adding to the recipe.
- Butter: You can use salted or unsalted, but I think that unsalted butter gives you a better opportunity to control the salt in the recipe.
- Onion: A sweet onion is best!
- The simplicity of this recipe demands high-quality ingredients. Don’t try to substitute the butter or use bargain brand tomatoes. Stick to the good stuff for the best final product.
- The cooking process is another secret to this recipe. Low and slow is the name of the game.
- As long as you stick to the core, high-quality ingredients you can switch up this sauce however you want. You could use leeks instead of onion or add some roasted cloves of garlic, black pepper, red pepper flakes or fresh herbs. The sky’s the limit!
- Feel free to play with the texture of your sauce. You could enjoy it as it or use a potato masher or food processor for a thinner sauce. If you like large pieces of tomato, use whole tomatoes.
- It is absolutely possible to use fresh, whole tomatoes for Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce but it takes a little more prep work and you may want to finish the sauce with an immersion blender.
Nutrition
Doris says
this is not the authentic tomato onion sauce from Marcella. her recipe is only 4 ingredients. you shouldn’t mislead people. this is your version of her classic recipe.
Alexandria Drzazgowski says
Hi Doris, You are so right and thank you for the feedback! I made sure to mark the additional seasonings as optional and explain in the recipe card that they are not part of the original recipe but that I like to add them in 🙂
Jeffrey Mack says
This sauce is DIVINE! I do use some of the onion grating it with a box grater after it cools and adding the “onion slush” back in to the sauce. It thickens the sauce and adds a bit of subtle sweetness. Enjoy!
The Foreign Fork says
Im so glad you lied it Jeffrey! Thank you for leaving a comment 🙂
Jennifer P says
Super easy to make and tastes great. The whole family loves it!
The Foreign Fork says
So glad to hear it Jennifer. Thank you 🙂
Kathy Napiorkowski Kozlinski says
I will definitely be trying this recipe.
Alexandria Drzazgowski says
Yay Im so glad to hear it!! Please stop by after you do and let me know what you thought 🙂