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    Home » Italy

    Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce

    Published on Dec 19, 2023 Modified: Apr 14, 2021 by Alexandria Drzazgowski.

    Jump to Recipe

    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!

    Fork resting on a plate of Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce served over pasta and parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.

    Hello Reader! I try my hardest to research recipes as best as I can before posting to ensure I am representing each culture correctly. If this recipe is from your country and I have made a mistake or you have suggestions for how to make it more authentic, I would love to hear! Please leave a comment below letting me know what should be different, and I will rework the recipe. It is always my intention to pay homage and respect to each cultural dish that I cook. Thanks for reading!

    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.

    Jump to:
    • What is the Secret Ingredient in this Spaghetti Sauce?
    • Why You Should Make This Recipe
    • What Ingredients are in this Easy Pasta Sauce? 
    • How to Make This Recipe
    • Expert Tips for Making Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce
    • Using Fresh Herbs vs Dried Herbs 
    • What Kind of Canned Tomatoes Do I Use? 
    • What Do I Do with the Onion?  
    • How Do You Get Spaghetti Sauce to Stick to the Noodles? 
    • Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce

    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

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.

    Ingredients shown are used to prepare Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce.
    1. 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. 
    2. 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. 
    3. Onion: A sweet onion is best! 
    4. 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

    Ingredients for Marcella Hazan's Tomato sauce in a dutch oven pan.
    Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce simmering in a Dutch oven with a halved onion and partial sticks of butter in the tomato mixture.

    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

    Close up of pasta topped with Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce on a plate with parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.
    • 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?  

    Close up of Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce in a Dutch oven with the halved onions simmering in the sauce.

    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: 

    • Vegemite Pasta from Australia 
    • Brown Butter Gnocchi with Sage and Walnuts
    • Cacio e Pepe Pasta 
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    A pile of spaghetti on a plate topped with Marcella Hazan's tomato sauce.

    Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce

    There has never been an easy pasta sauce recipe easier than this pasta 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!
    5 from 2 votes
    Print Pin Rate
    Course: Main Course, sauce
    Cuisine: Italian
    Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes
    Cook Time: 45 minutes minutes
    Total Time: 50 minutes minutes
    Servings: 4
    Calories: 243kcal
    Author: Alexandria Drzazgowski

    Equipment

    • Pot(s)

    Ingredients

    • 28 oz petite diced tomatoes
    • ¾ tsp salt
    • ½ tsp black pepper
    • ½ tbsp dry basil
    • ½ tsp onion powder
    • ½ tsp garlic powder
    • 6 tbsp unsalted butter
    • 1 sweet onion, peeled and halved

    Instructions

    • Combine the 28 oz tomatoes, ¾ tsp salt, ½ tsp black pepper, ½ tbsp 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 butter and 1 sweet 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.
    • Serve and enjoy!

    Notes

    Copyright The Foreign Fork. For educational or personal use only.
    • 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 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

    Serving: 1serving | Calories: 243kcal | Carbohydrates: 21g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 18g | Saturated Fat: 11g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 45mg | Sodium: 707mg | Potassium: 696mg | Fiber: 5g | Sugar: 13g | Vitamin A: 967IU | Vitamin C: 22mg | Calcium: 92mg | Iron: 3mg
    Tried this Recipe? Pin it for Later!Mention @TheForeignFork or tag #TheForeignFork!
    pinterest image for Easy pasta sauce recipe

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    Comments

    1. Jeffrey Mack says

      December 26, 2022 at 6:55 pm

      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!

      Reply
      • The Foreign Fork says

        December 29, 2022 at 9:45 am

        Im so glad you lied it Jeffrey! Thank you for leaving a comment 🙂

        Reply
    2. Jennifer P says

      September 18, 2021 at 10:25 pm

      5 stars
      Super easy to make and tastes great. The whole family loves it!

      Reply
      • The Foreign Fork says

        September 19, 2021 at 7:07 pm

        So glad to hear it Jennifer. Thank you 🙂

        Reply
    3. Kathy Napiorkowski Kozlinski says

      March 04, 2020 at 12:50 pm

      I will definitely be trying this recipe.

      Reply
      • Alexandria Drzazgowski says

        March 04, 2020 at 10:00 pm

        Yay Im so glad to hear it!! Please stop by after you do and let me know what you thought 🙂

        Reply
    5 from 2 votes (1 rating without comment)

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