The best tomato sauce has four ingredients. That's it. And yet most versions fall short — too acidic, too sweet, too thin, too complicated. This one is none of those things.
Ingredients (serves 4)
- 1 × 400g can whole peeled tomatoes (San Marzano if possible)
- 1 medium onion, peeled and halved
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
- Salt to taste
The Marcella Hazan Method
This recipe is an interpretation of a sauce made famous by Marcella Hazan — widely considered the godmother of Italian cooking for English-speaking audiences. It seems too simple to be great. It is great precisely because it is simple.
Place the tomatoes (crush them gently with your hand as they go in), butter, and onion halves in a saucepan. Add a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat.
Cook uncovered for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, breaking up the tomatoes as they soften. The onion halves are there to sweeten the sauce — you'll discard them at the end.
After 45 minutes, fish out the onion halves and discard them. Taste the sauce and adjust salt. That's it.
Why butter?
Butter does two things olive oil cannot: it softens the acidity of the tomatoes, and it gives the sauce a rounded, velvety body. This is not a sauce with olive oil on top — it's a sauce built from butter upwards. It coats pasta beautifully.
Variations
Once you've made this a few times, start experimenting. Add a pinch of chilli flakes with the tomatoes. Finish with torn basil. Stir in a Parmesan rind while it cooks. Each change makes it yours. But first: make it exactly as written, at least once. There's a reason it's become a classic.