Easy Tomato Cream Pasta Sauce

A Weeknight Staple

Sep 19, 2024

Hello, everyone.

Today I wanted to share a recipe that I’ve been making a bunch recently. This isn’t my recipe— it’s an amalgamation of a few different recipes and techniques I’ve seen elsewhere over the years. The reason I like this particular version so much is that it’s dead simple, comes together really quickly, and makes use of a bunch of pantry staples. This makes for a delicious weeknight dish that doesn’t require too much time or effort.

This sauce works with pretty much any type of pasta. I love this most with a perfectly al dente bucatini, but I’ve had it with penne, fusili, and a bunch of others.

This recipe is also fairly flexible. I use both tomato paste and crushed/strained tomatoes, but you could make it entirely with just one or the other. If you go with just tomato paste, I’d just add a bit of extra cream and/or pasta water to thin it out a bit. If you go with just strained tomatoes, give it some extra time to cook down into a concentrated sauce before you add the cream. You can use shallots instead of onions, you can add in a little bit of minced garlic, you could throw some Calabrian chiles in the mix, or you could add some ground meat for a bit of extra protein. There are a ton of customizations to explore. Remember, chef in French literally means boss. You are the chef. You are the boss.

Experiment with it, and feel free to shoot me a message if you have any questions!

Myles

Ingredients

As far as ingredients go, this one is pretty simple. These are all things that you likely do, or at least should, have in your pantry most of the time.

I’m a huge fan of Bionaturae for their tomato products— I use their tomato paste and crushed strained tomatoes often. I also found out recently that they have a whole line of sourdough pasta! I’ve been making homemade sourdough pasta for a couple of years now, and I’ve been waiting for a reputable brand to make a dried version. I’m looking forward to giving this a try. I also love Seggiano, which is my personal favorite brand for dried pasta.

1/3 cup tomato paste
1/3 cup crushed/strained tomatoes
1/2 yellow onion
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter
olive oil
salt
Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano Reggiano to finish
1/2 - 1 lb dried or fresh pasta

Process

Start by finely mincing your onion. Alternatively, you can use the same technique I suggested in my meatball experiments post: grate the onion with a cheese grater, or blitz it in a food processor. Then use a spatula and a fine-mesh strainer to press all of the liquid out of the onion. I like to do this because it makes for a very concentrated sauce where the onion seamlessly melts in.

Bring a large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. The rule of thumb in Italy is that the water should be salty like the ocean. Make sure to be generous with the salt.

Heat a stainless steel or ceramic pan over medium-low heat (I don’t like to make this sauce in a cast iron or carbon steel pan since the acidity of the tomato will react with the metal).

Once the pan is hot, add in a big glug of olive oil, and then add in the onion.

Cook for a few minutes until the onion is soft and translucent, but not yet browned. Add in a bit of salt.

Add in the tomato paste, and press it with a spatula to distribute it around the pan. It will slowly melt and become more liquid. Stir it occasionally— you want to slightly caramelize the tomato paste.

Cook for about 5 minutes.

Add in the crushed tomatoes, and stir to combine. Taste and adjust for salt.

Add in the butter, allow it to melt, and then slowly cook the sauce for about 15 minutes.

Turn the heat to low. Add in the cream, and stir to combine. Taste and adjust with salt as needed.

Cook the pasta according to the directions.

As the pasta is cooking, take a big spoonful of the starchy pasta water and add that to the sauce. Stir to combine. This starch will help the texture of the sauce.