Perfect Pomodoro Pasta (The Best Tomato Pasta)

Cooking with Rich

2022-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

This must be one of the easiest pastas to make! With only four main ingredients for the sauce, your choice of pasta and a little time you will be super surprised at how tasty and how satisfying this Italian staple will be. It does require some time, which is the key to the favours combining and enhancing each other. However the prep time is quick.

The four main ingredients are tomatoes, of course, garlic, chilli and a little white wine, although you can use vegetable stock as an alternative if you prefer. The rest is a little salt and pepper to taste, a little parsley to garnish and a little parmesan if you wish.

The beauty of this recipe is that it can be a great foundation for adding your own additions to create as many alternatives as your have the inclination to imagine.

Perfect Pomodoro Pasta (The Best Tomato Pasta)

Perfect Pomodoro Pasta - Cooking with Rich

Preparation: 5 mins | Cooking Time: 3.5 hours | Serves: 4-5 adults

Ingredients

3 tins (3x 400g) whole peeled plums tomatoes
500g pasta
4-5 garlic cloves
2 fresh chillies (more or less to taste)
125-150 ml dry white wine
Salt & pepper to taste
Chopped parsley and grated parmesan to garnish
Optional: 90g of prosciutto (not vegetarian tho)
500g pasta of choice

Preparation

Peel and thinly slice garlic.
Cut chilies length ways in half, either remove the seeds or keep for a little extra spice, finely slice.
In a suitable heavy based pan/pot, heat a little olive oil and gently fry the garlic and chillies, but don't burn.
Add the tomatoes, the white wine and 1/2 tbsp of olive oil.
Heat until bubbling then turn heat down to medium low, place lid on and let cook a minimum of 3 hours.
Stir occasionally, if the sauce starts to look a little dry add a little water, a little more wine or a little vegetable stock.
~25 mins prior to serving, heat a pot of salted water and cook pasta 1 min less than recommended, it should not be quite done.
Drain pasta and add directly to sauce, turn heat up to medium and stir/combine well allowing to cook for another 3-5mins.
Serve immediately adding parsley and fresh parmesan.

Tips & Alternatives

Using fresh Roma tomatoes is actually the most authentic. If you do this, blanche the tomatoes first to remove the skin and then follow the recipe. You can add a little passata if you like.
I love adding prosciutto for some added flavour and texture, pancetta also works as does bacon if that is all you have. My preference is to fry and crisp it first then add it to the sauce toward the end, just prior to adding the pasta (step 8. above). You can also simply add it as a garnish with the parsley, which also works.
A flat pasta, linguine or tagliatelle is great, however using any pasta or gnocchi works just as well.
The longer you cook your sauce the better, just add a little water or veg stock as you go.
Feel free to experiment with adding additional dried herbs like oregano, basil, thyme or a couple of bay leaves.
Once you have the base sauce mastered you can then add extras such as sausage, prawns, mushrooms, meat balls etc, you get the idea.
This sauce is also perfect for freezing into portions to use as you wish.

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