Tomato and Basil Sauce | Sugo di Pomodoro e Basilico

Disclaimer: Please note that as an Amazon Associate, Pasta et Al earns a small commission from qualifying purchases. It won’t cost you anything extra, but will help to keep us operating. We use and love all of the bits and pieces that we recommend on our blog, and hope that you will too!

The Story

The best things in life are often simple. It’s with great pleasure that we spend a whole afternoon making pasta, but with even greater pleasure that we remember the sugo to go with it will only take half an hour to make. This is our super quick and tasty tomato and basil sauce.

Aside from its simplicity, the beauty of this sauce is its versatility. You can make it with only tinned and dried pantry items, or you can use fresh ingredients in their place. Maybe you forgot to do the shopping, you live in a tent, or possums ate your basil; a sugo remains attainable. Likewise if you have the time and inclination for a deeper flavour, you can cook it for longer; but if you’re in a tearing hurry to get that pasta into you, ten minutes will (arguably) do it. It also pairs with just about any pasta you can imagine. Ah, perfetto!

ingredients for simple tomato sauce cheese passata onion garlic pepper
If you don’t have tinned tomatoes, onions, and garlic in your pantry at all times, stop what you are doing and go straight to the shops.

The Sauce

It all starts with the soffritto. This is a quick sauce, cooked on high heat in a frypan (to give its own depth to the tomatoes), so you can afford to be less careful with your soffritto than you would for a big slow cooked sugo. But still treat it with respect! Use good quality extra-virgin olive oil, and lots of it, and remember that you’re softening the onion and garlic, not frying it.

spinach wilted in a pan with onion and garlic soffritto

Next, toss in a big handful (or many little ones) of fresh basil, or a generous teaspoon or two of dried if you really have to. Here we’ve gone for a mix of regular basil and the slightly punchier dark-stalked Greek basil.

Little Al in charge of stirring.

Add a tin of whole peeled tomatoes and mash them up a bit in the pan; season with a pinch of sugar and salt. And don’t forget to slosh some water around in that tin to get every last bit! Then just cook it for 20 minutes or so on relatively high heat, stirring often, until you’re happy with the complexity of the flavour.

close up of teaspoon of sugar over sugar jar

There’s nothing wrong with adjusting to a shorter cooking time and slightly rawer taste, but I personally find that that’s best suited to fresh tomatoes. Tinned will still work in a pinch, but even with the addition of sugar you may have difficulty offsetting the bitterness.

Real talk here: mix your pasta into the sauce, be it in the pan or a new bowl. This ridiculous sauce served on top of drained pasta thing… It kills me. Don’t be that sauce on top of the pasta person.

fresh freshly cooked green spinach ravioli being tossed into a frypan of simple tomato sauce

If you’ve been following our blog, you will have seen our signature spinach ravioli. We are completely obsessed with these. If you’ve just finished making your very own batch, then this is the perfect sauce for you! Alternatively, you might want to try our quicker spinach fettuccine, or even our handmade paccheri.

bowl of green spinach ravioli tossed through tomato pasta sauce with cheese on top
Our spinach and ricotta ravioli!

Whatever you eat it with, relish those simple classic flavours. And, as always, buon appetito!

– Al & Al.

simple tomato pasta sauce cooked in a fry pan with wooden spoon

Tomato and Basil Sauce

Quick, delicious, and simple. Make it with common pantry items, or substitute with fresh tomatoes and basil to enjoy an even quicker, lighter sauce.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Pasta, Quick, Sauce, Sugo, Tomato, Vegan, Vegetarian
Servings: 2
Calories: 205kcal

Equipment

  • Frypan

Ingredients

  • 400 g tin of whole peeled tomatoes or diced/crushed tomatoes
  • 1/2 onion diced
  • 3-4 cloves garlic minced
  • handful fresh basil
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • pinch sugar and salt

Instructions

  • Gently sweat the onions and garlic in the olive oil in a large pan, on low to medium heat, stirring constantly until the onion is soft and translucent. Be sure to not let the garlic burn.
  • Slightly crush or bruise the basil leaves and drop in to fry for a few minutes. They should go a vibrant green.
    spinach wilted in a pan with onion and garlic soffritto
  • Add the tomatoes, with the sugar and salt (sugar is less important if using fresh tomatoes), and then increase the heat to medium-high. Watch out for spitting tomatoes! If they spit, it’s probably too hot anyway.
    close up of teaspoon of sugar over sugar jar
  • Cook with a medium boil for around 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Taste it as you go, and simply take it off when you're happy with the complexity of flavour. A longer and darker sauce is better suited to tinned tomatoes, while a quicker and lighter sauce will make the most of fresh produce.
    simple tomato pasta sauce cooked in a fry pan with wooden spoon
  • Take off the heat, and add your pasta of choice to the pan, tossing through gently.
  • Plate it up and cover with a generous mound of grated hard cheese. We love romano, grana padano, or parmesan. Looking for a pasta to pair? Try our spinach and ricotta ravioli (it's how we serve it)! Otherwise, just about any pasta will go with this versatile sauce.
    bowl of green spinach ravioli tossed through tomato pasta sauce with cheese on top

Nutrition

Calories: 205kcal | Carbohydrates: 19.5g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 14.6g | Saturated Fat: 2.1g | Sodium: 266mg | Potassium: 658mg | Fiber: 4.6g | Sugar: 1.5g | Calcium: 90mg | Iron: 3mg
Made this recipe? We’d love to see!Mention @pastaetal or tag #pastaetal!

Related Posts

Striped Ricotta Fagottini with Garlic and Fennel Confit Purée

Striped Ricotta Fagottini with Garlic and Fennel Confit Purée

Working on our book over this last year or so, I’ve focused on pairing more complicated pasta with simpler sauces, and vice versa. It just allows you to save a little time on one element, and use that to create something special with another.

So the dough and pasta is the focus here, although the confit purée is deceptively impressive for its simplicity – you certainly don’t have to sacrifice flavour to save time! This is our Striped Ricotta Fagottini with Garlic and Fennel Confit Purée.

Tomato Day 2023

Tomato Day 2023

Tomato Day this year only happened because I’m notoriously bad at reading and responding to messages. In the space of 24 hours we somehow pulled it all together. My uncle was immediately up for the challenge, and had a guy lined up by the end of the day with probably the last Romas in Australia. My mum grabbed some regular tomatoes and came straight around from work so that we could use them to clean out the machine, my cousin made early-morning plans to turn up with her baby and mum in tow, my brother drove 2.5 hours in the dark in a breaking down car, and my startled father-in-law, by chance visiting from Sydney, found himself swept up in the unstoppable momentum of Tomato Day 2023.



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating





As a subscriber to our mailing list, you'll be the first to know when a new post is up, and we'll even send you the occasional bit of exclusive content directly to your inbox!

Thank you! Please check your inbox to confirm your subscription.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This