Dinner,  Lunch

Simple Tomato Pasta Sauce

Last summer I travelled to Italy with one of my closest friends, we were in Florence at the time staying in an AirBnB. One night, we decided that for dinner we were going to make pasta. We went to the grocery store and grabbed all of the necessary ingredients for the dish, and then went home and started to prepare it. About ten minutes into the preparation, this elderly Italian man came into the kitchen and actually told us that we were preparing it all wrong! It turns out that he was actually the owner of the house and started to show us how to cook authentic Italian tomato pasta sauce. What really intrigued me was that he actually used very few ingredients: tomatoes, olive oil, salt and pepper. But for some reason the dish was amazing – hands down one of the best pasta dishes I have ever eaten in my life. Since then, I’ve wanted to recreate this dish so badly… hopefully I did him some justice. 

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 can of diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 cup of red wine
  • 6 cloves of garlic
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tsp chili flakes (optional)
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 bay leaves

DIRECTIONS

  1. Heat up a medium sauté pan on medium- high heat with olive oil and garlic for 3 minutes until fragrant.  (Add chili flakes right now if you want it spicier). 
  2. Combine your diced tomatoes and stir together for 5 minutes.
  3. Stir in your red wine, Italian seasoning, sugar, salt, bay leaves. 
  4. Bring your pan to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes on low heat.
  5. Discard bay leave and serve with your choice of pasta & parmesan! 

Let me know how you enjoy this recipe in the comments below! Stay tuned for more recipes!

xx, CWC