Marcella's Tomato Sauce
Three ingredients pretending to be five — canned tomatoes, an onion halved, butter.
Ingredients
- 400 g Pasta
- 800 g Canned tomatoes
- 1 Onion
- 80 g Butter
- 1½ tsp Salt
- ½ tsp Black pepper
Method
- Peel and halve the onion. Combine it with the tomatoes, butter, and salt in a saucepan over low heat.
- Simmer gently, stirring occasionally and crushing the tomatoes, for 40 minutes until rich and thick.
- In the last stretch of the simmer, bring salted water to the boil.
- Cook the pasta one minute shy of al dente.
- Reserve a mugful of pasta water, then drain.
- Fish out the onion halves. Toss the pasta with the sauce, loosening with a splash of the reserved pasta water if needed, and season with black pepper. Serve hot.
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About Marcella's Tomato Sauce
Marcella's tomato sauce is the famous three-ingredient sauce that made Marcella Hazan a household name, a dish that proves how little good Italian cooking sometimes requires. Canned tomatoes, an onion cut in half, and a generous knob of butter simmer together with nothing else but salt, and the alchemy of that slow cook produces a sauce that tastes far more complex than its parts. The butter rounds the tomatoes' acidity into something silky and almost sweet, while the halved onion perfumes the sauce from within and is fished out before serving. It's velvety, comforting, and quietly luxurious over a plate of pasta.
What makes it work is restraint and time. The sauce isn't sauteed or built in layers; everything simply goes into the pan together and cooks low for around forty minutes while you occasionally crush the tomatoes against the side. That unhurried simmer is what lets the flavors marry and the butter emulsify into the tomato. Cooking the pasta to al dente in the last stretch and tossing it straight into the sauce means it arrives hot and coated. It's a weeknight-easy dish that eats like something you fussed over, needing only black pepper and, if you like, a shower of parmesan to finish.
Marcella's Tomato Sauce: frequently asked questions
How many calories are in Marcella's Tomato Sauce?
A serving has about 603 calories — 16.4g protein, 92g carbs, 18.6g fat, 7.7g fiber. Figures are estimated from the ingredient amounts and will shift with your portions and brands.
Is Marcella's Tomato Sauce gluten-free?
As written, no — it contains Pasta. You'd need a certified gluten-free swap for that ingredient to make it gluten-free.
Is Marcella's Tomato Sauce dairy-free?
Not as written — it uses Butter. Swapping it for a plant-based alternative makes it dairy-free.
How long does Marcella's Tomato Sauce take to make?
About 45 minutes start to finish, but only around 6 of those are hands-on — the rest is largely unattended cooking time you can step away from. In the Homecooked app the timers and parallel steps are sequenced for you so the hands-on part feels even shorter.
How many servings does Marcella's Tomato Sauce make?
This recipe makes 4 servings. In the app you can scale it up or down and the ingredient amounts adjust automatically.