Spare Spoons Kitchen
Tomato Sauce with Butter & Onion
The Weeknight Kitchen · Italian · About an hour, mostly simmering

Tomato Sauce with
Butter & Onion

Marcella Hazan's famous three-ingredient sauce: tomatoes, butter and a halved onion, simmered together for three quarters of an hour. Nothing gets chopped or browned. The onion sweetens the sauce and comes out at the end, and the butter makes it round and silky. This version starts from fresh romas.

1 hr start to finish 10 min hands-on 3 ingredients in the sauce
Spoon cost
Time ●●○○○ Anytime
Vegetarian
Fewer ingredients, shortcut steps — the same dish, less to track.
Servings1× sauces a full box of pasta
4
Units

Ingredients

Wait for the butter to show. Nothing is sautéed first: the tomatoes, butter and onion go into the pot together and simmer slowly. The sauce is done when it has thickened and the butter separates out into little glistening droplets around the edges and on the surface. That's the cue, more than the clock.

Method

    Cook's notes

    Marcella Hazan's sauce. This is the best-known recipe from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and it's famous because it is so simple and so good. Her recipe works with either fresh, ripe plum tomatoes or canned Italian ones. This page starts from fresh romas, which make a lighter, fresher-tasting sauce; tap 🥄 Simplify this recipe for the canned version, which is the one to make in winter.

    Grater or blanching? Both get the skins off. Grating is faster for a small batch and leaves you one bowl to wash. Blanching takes longer, but it's the better choice for a big batch, or if you want whole peeled tomatoes to freeze for later. Pick the method at the top of the steps.

    If you use the food processor, pulse it; don't let it run. A long run whips air into the tomatoes, and the sauce turns pale orange and foamy and takes a while to go red again. It can also break the seeds, which some cooks find gives the sauce a faint bitterness. A slightly chunky texture is better for this sauce anyway.

    The onion. It goes in whole so it can come out whole: it flavors the sauce without leaving any pieces in it. Don't throw it away. It's soft and sweet, and good chopped onto toast, stirred into rice, or eaten straight from the pot.

    The butter is the point. It's what makes the sauce taste rounder and richer than an olive-oil sauce, so use real unsalted butter. Marcella served it with Parmigiano grated at the table.

    Keeping it. The sauce keeps for about four days in the fridge, and freezes well for about three months. It's worth doubling.

    Easier, if you like

    • Canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Tap 🥄 Simplify this recipe for Marcella's canned-tomato version. There's no grating or peeling: the tomatoes go straight into the pot, and you crush them with your hands.
    Vegetarian; can be made vegan or gluten-free

    Vegan or dairy-free: use good olive oil in place of the butter. It's a different sauce, brighter and fruitier rather than round and silky, but a very good one. Skip the cheese at the table.

    Gluten-free: Barilla Gluten Free Spaghetti (blue box, pasta aisle). Pull it a minute early and save the cooking water as usual.

    No yellow onion: a white onion works the same way. Red onion turns the sauce a slightly murky color.