Dinner · Italian
Tomato Marinara Sauce
A 40-minute tomato marinara sauce with butter, olive oil, onion and garlic, plus clear thickness cues, pasta-serving guidance and a vegan variation.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Total
- 40 min
- Serves
- 4 sauce portions
Cook it
Method
Dice the onion and finely chop the garlic. Tip the tomatoes and their juice into a bowl and crush the tomatoes with clean hands or a potato masher. Measure the remaining ingredients before heating the pan.
Melt the butter with the olive oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook for 4–5 minutes until softened, stirring frequently. Add the garlic and cook for about 1 minute without letting it brown.
Add the crushed tomatoes with all their juice, the oregano and chilli flakes. Stir, bring to a gentle simmer, then partly cover and cook over low heat for 12–15 minutes. Stir occasionally, scraping the base.
Stir in the tomato paste, the measured salt and sugar, and the black pepper. Simmer gently for another 10 minutes, stirring regularly. If the sauce starts sticking before it has finished cooking, add a small splash of water.
Taste a cooled spoonful. Add a little more salt only if needed, or a small pinch of sugar if the tomatoes are particularly sharp. The finished sauce should coat a spoon but still spread easily. Loosen with water or reserved pasta water when serving if it is too thick.
Divide into four sauce portions and serve with separately cooked pasta, or cool promptly for storage. Pasta and toppings are not included in the sauce ingredient quantities.
Make it work
Useful substitutions
- Use 750 g canned chopped tomatoes, including their juice, instead of whole tomatoes. The texture will be finer and some brands may need a little extra simmering.
- For a vegan sauce, replace the 55 g butter with 45 ml olive oil in addition to the existing 15 ml. The base recipe contains dairy; the variation changes the flavour and richness.
- Omit the chilli flakes for a mild sauce. Salted canned tomatoes will need less added salt, so begin with less and taste at the end.
Keep it well
Storage and reheating
- Keep stored sauce separate from cooked pasta where practical; pasta continues to absorb sauce as it sits.
- Transfer leftovers to shallow containers and refrigerate within 2 hours. Under USDA FSIS guidance, use within 3 to 4 days or freeze promptly in suitable containers with expansion space.
- Reheat the portion needed, stirring frequently, until it reaches 74°C throughout. Add a splash of water if it thickens. This recipe is not a validated home-canning recipe and should not be stored at room temperature.
Recipe notes
Sources and cooking notes
This butter-enriched tomato sauce uses the source recipe’s metric tomato weights. Drain neither the tomatoes nor their juice. The tomato paste makes a concentrated sauce; use gentle heat and stir across the base so it does not catch.
- Cookbook:American Marinara Sauce I — Source ingredient formula and cooking sequence; adapted with the changes listed below.
- AI Love Food editorial methodology — Clarified preparation, equipment, timing estimates and troubleshooting notes.
- USDA FSIS: Leftovers and Food Safety — Refrigeration within 2 hours, shallow-container cooling, 3 to 4 days of refrigerated storage and reheating leftovers to 74°C (165°F).
Cooking tips and troubleshooting
Choosing the tomatoes
Use plain whole peeled tomatoes in juice. Seasoned tomato products change the salt, herb and sugar balance. The source lists inconsistent can-size conversions, so this version specifies the metric weights to give you one clear set of measurements.
How thick should marinara be?
A spoon dragged across the pan should leave a brief trail that closes slowly. If the sauce forms a stiff mound, loosen it a little. If watery liquid separates around the edges, simmer uncovered for a few extra minutes, stirring often. Pan width and tomato brand affect reduction.
Serving and scaling
Four portions describes the sauce, not four complete meals. Cook pasta separately and use enough sauce to coat it. A larger batch may need a wider pan and a longer simmer; doubling ingredients does not mean doubling cooking time.
Turn it into a pasta dinner
Cook the pasta separately until just tender and reserve some of its cooking water. Toss the hot pasta with enough marinara to coat it, adding a small splash of reserved water only if the sauce needs loosening. This recipe measures the sauce only, so pasta and toppings are separate from its ingredient quantities.
Recipe source and licence
Adapted by AI Love Food from Cookbook:American Marinara Sauce I by Wikibooks contributors (contributor history). This adapted recipe text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0. The image is credited separately.
Adapted from Cookbook:American Marinara Sauce I. Uses its metric tomato weights, specifies 55 g butter for the half-stick measure, starts with 1 teaspoon each of salt and sugar, softens the onion for longer and clarifies the simmering sequence. The unexplained 24-hour time in the source is omitted; 40 minutes is a preparation estimate. Adds texture adjustments, substitutions and storage guidance. The adapted recipe text is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; the separately generated illustration is not copied from Wikibooks.