Marinara Sauce
Four ingredients, forty minutes, and no browning at all. The point is bright tomato, not deep savoury.
- Prep
- 5m
- Cook
- 40m
- Total
- 45m
- Serves
- enough for 500 g pasta
- Effort
- Easy
Scale
Units
Method
Tap a step number to mark it done. Tap an ingredient once for got it, twice for need it.
| 1/3 cup | Warm the garlic in the oil until it just whispers 5m Pale gold at most. Browned garlic makes the whole sauce bitter. | Simmer uncovered until it thickens and the oil pools 35m Wide pan, low heat. You are evaporating water, not stewing. | |
| 4 cloves | |||
| 1/2 tsp | |||
| 2 tins | |||
| 1 tsp | |||
| a few sprigs |
-
Warm the garlic in the oil until it just whispers
5m- olive oil 1/3 cup
- garlic 4 cloves
- chilli flakes (optional) 1/2 tsp
Pale gold at most. Browned garlic makes the whole sauce bitter.
-
Simmer uncovered until it thickens and the oil pools
35m- from 1 Warm the garlic in the oil until it just whispers
- whole peeled tomatoes 2 tins
- salt 1 tsp
- basil a few sprigs
Wide pan, low heat. You are evaporating water, not stewing.
Whole tomatoes, crushed by hand
Tinned whole tomatoes are graded better than pre-chopped, and chopped ones are usually treated with calcium chloride to hold their shape — which is exactly what you do not want when you are trying to break them down. Crushing by hand gives an irregular texture that a blender cannot.
Notes
- No onion and no browning. Those belong in a longer-cooked sauce; this one is meant to taste of tomato.
- If it tastes sharp, it needs more time, not sugar. Sugar masks acidity; reduction concentrates sweetness that is already there.
- Freezes well in portions.