Tomato
This Marcella Hazan Recipe is Still Our Most Popular Tomato Sauce, Ever
The four-ingredient recipe our community loves.
There are a few things I always have in my kitchen: a can of tomatoes, butter, an onion, some pasta. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those just so happen to be the exact ingredients needed to make a batch of one very special—and very simple—tomato sauce.
First published in her cookbook Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking over 30 years ago and featured in Kristen Miglore’s Genius column in 2016, Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce With Onion & Butter has won the hearts of countless home cooks and inspired nearly 600 reviews on our site.
The sauce only calls for three ingredients (plus salt), and the prep work is practically nonexistent: Just toss the tomatoes, butter, a halved onion, and salt into a saucepan, bring to a simmer, and let it cook slowly and steadily for about 45 minutes. Over the course of the cook time, the chunks of tomatoes disintegrate, and their flavor becomes concentrated and sweet. The onion, left intact, infuses the sauce with just enough allium flavor to enhance—not overpower—the tomatoes. And the butter emulsifies the sauce, giving it a luxuriously silky texture that olive oil alone can’t quite replicate.
It’s a simple formula that doesn’t sound like much, but there’s some sort of alchemy that happens when the tomatoes are allowed to slowly intermingle with the butter and onion. “I thought the sauce would taste like tomatoes and butter and onion, but the sum of ingredients are transformed into something bigger than its parts,” said community member CookingMom.
“There's such a tendency to get bogged down in a dependence on millions of ingredients,” echoed Elizabeth K. “But periodically getting back to bare basics is important so you can appreciate ingredients for what they are. And, I have to say, the clean flavors in this sauce really didn't miss all the extras.”
However, if you are more of a cooking maximalist, it’s also a recipe that you can easily adapt or add to. For those who have an abundance of ripe, in-season plum tomatoes, you can easily use those instead of canned. We even share three easy methods for preparing them: blanching, freezing, or running them through a food mill. And that’s just one riff. Some community members also add basil and other herbs to the sauce. Others use it as a base for meatballs or as their default pizza sauce. I, however, rarely stray from the simplest of preparations: tossed with whatever pasta shape I have on hand and showered with some high-quality, freshly grated Parmesan.
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Written by: Anabelle Doliner
Popular on Food52
5 Comments
That onion is cook's treat. Do not discard it. It's delicious.
Highly recommended; Ms. Hazan's Ragu Bolognese recipe, which differs in basic approach from most recipes I see these days. Particularly important is the way the milk is handled; takes more time than most are willing to give it, but it absolutely transforms the recipe; tossing in some milk (some even use cream) at the end is no substitute.
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