Did you know that the traditional Italian way of making pasta sauce involves barely any ingredients or prep? Italian nonnas have been using this recipe for years - all you need are a can or two of chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, salt, and pepper. Despite what almost every online pasta sauce recipe will tell you, there are no onions in sight!
It’s such a simple recipe, yet the secret is letting the sauce bubble for an hour or more to bring out the flavors. What happens if you don’t have much time, yet you want to whip up a delicious pasta sauce in 15 minutes or less? It sounds impossible, but these hacks will make it doable:
Use The Highest Quality Chopped Tomatoes
Quality ingredients make a massive difference when cooking anything. For a punchier and more flavorful pasta sauce, you need the best chopped or pureed tomatoes available. Organic is best - if you can get fresh chopped tomatoes from a farmer’s market or make them yourself at home, then that’s even better.
Add Some Stock Or Broth
The longer you cook your tomato sauce, the deeper and richer the flavors will be. However, when you’re short on time, you can add a quick flavor hack that makes it seem like your sauce has simmered for hours.
Throw in the best organic bone broth for some serious saucy richness. If you’re veggie, then a quality veg stock cube will also do the trick. These things give so much concentrated flavor to your sauce because they’ve essentially already been cooked for hours anyway! Both options add a true depth of umami goodness to the sauce, and you instantly notice the difference.
Use Sun-dried Tomato Paste
In a traditional pasta sauce recipe, the tomato paste works with the canned tomatoes to bring out more of the tomatoey flavor. You can still achieve this and then take it to the next level, with sun-dried tomato paste.
Everything tastes better with sundried tomatoes because they add new flavors to your sauce. There’s slightly more tanginess and a bit of additional sweetness to counteract the acidity of your tomatoes. It’s such a massive flavor punch in such a small thing, but it tastes amazing.
Always Add A Bit Of Fresh Basil
To make this sauce, you’ll lightly fry some garlic in olive oil before adding in the sundried tomato paste and chopped canned tomatoes. Then, add in your broth/stock and let it simmer for 10-15 minutes. Before you put a lid on your sauce for it to simmer, make sure to add some fresh basil.
It transforms the sauce into an absolute flavor sensation - and you can top it with more fresh basil at the end for some beautiful floral notes.
And there you have it: how to make a more flavorsome pasta sauce in 15 minutes or less. The best thing about this is that you don’t need to prep or cut anything other than the garlic - and to be honest, you can cheat here and use garlic paste anyway!