How To: Make A Simple Red Sauce

Sam Wilkinson

According to a faithful reader, I'm Ordinary Times's "least thoughtful writer." So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

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10 Responses

  1. Maribou says:

    This recipe makes me want someone to cook me spaghetti every time I read it.

    (Which, if it isn’t obvious, is a high compliment.)

    Plus it was funny.Report

  2. Jaybird says:

    If I may, I would like to offer a small trick I’ve learned for the tail end of the cooking of the pasta.

    Once the pasta is done and drained, I like to put some butter in the bottom of the pasta pot and stir the pasta (over low heat) into the melted butter for half a minute. If your sauce develops a small film of oil at the top, ladle that oil and pour it into the pasta and butter for another 30 seconds.

    *THEN* take the pasta off of the heat and serve it as usual.Report

  3. Slade the Leveller says:

    Will this actually cook down to a nice, thick consistency without adding some tomato paste?

    My go to sauce has always been tomatoes (a la Wilkinson), tomato sauce, and tomato paste. Add schumtz and cook down so it’s really thick (always a bone of contention. Mrs. Slade likes lumpy, and I like smooth).Report

  4. Kazzy says:

    Another option with raw meat is to brown it with the garlic before adding the tomatoes. This has many added benefits, though the primary one is time.Report

  5. LeeEsq says:

    My mom made red sauce when I was a kid.Report

  6. Pete Mack says:

    I like to have spices beyond garlic. Fresh rosemary, or a whole lot of basil is good. (Basil added at the end, rosemary earlier.) Red wine is good, too.Report

  7. My sauce is a little different, but maybe it doesn’t qualify as a sauce. I use a lot more olive oil and I cut up the garlic (it tastes more garlicky to me that way). I also chop up an onion and cook it with the garlic. I then add canned diced tomatoes and cook off as much of the water as I can. (I do it all in a frying pan, and not a dutch oven.) I find if you don’t scorch the tomatoes too badly, they actually start to taste kind of sweet.

    Again, mine probably isn’t a sauce. It’s more like olive-oiled, garlic-, and onionized tomatoes, but we like it. It’s also not enough to feed a family of five, although it could feed three people, and I’m sure I can scale it upwards to feed more.

    I might give your recipe a try, though. Thanks for writing this.Report