Seeking the secret to good pasta sauce

I can cook or bake most things, but sauces generally elude me. Pasta sauce is no exception.*

Oh, sure, I can make something nice and edibly rustic with some good tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, garlic, oregano, basil, and salt and pepper, but my sauce never has that "Oof!" moment that I have experienced in various Italian restaurants. Something is missing, but I don't know what. What is it that helps to bring a pasta sauce together and make it special?

*Years ago, my husband started hinting that it would be nice if I would try to cook something every once in a while. My maiden voyage was pasta with tomato sauce. I tossed the pasta into a pot of cold water, turned it on, then dumped the cooked noodles into a bowl and doused it with canned tomato sauce with a shake of oregano. To his credit, my husband did try to eat it. He started teaching me the basics after that.

On a recent 'Splendid Table', Lynn Rosetto Casper said that one of the keys to good pasta sauce is to cook your pasta about 1 minute less than normal. Take a few tablespoons of the pasta water and add it to the sauce, drain the pasta and add it to the sauce pan and cook for 1 minute.

Since I rarely make pasta, I have not tested this.

Pasta sauces, of many types, is something I've been practicing and practicing for years and I think it's one of the better things I do in the kitchen.

If I had to list one thing as "the secret", I'd say it's time. You need to take your time in developing a battuto slowly and take your time in letting your sauce sit at a gentle simmer. If I want to, I can throw together a sauce in 40 minutes, but they're nowhere near the quality of the sauces that take the better part of the day.

The best way I learned to make a good sauce was to take the time to learn an authentic Bolognese recipe**. Even the first time I tried one, I was very impressed with the results. By the fifth or sixth time, I hadn't found a restaurant version that I preferred to mine (maybe Terragusto's).

Furthermore, the basic technique I learned from executing a Bolognese became the basic technique for improvisation and adaptation: you can increase the tomato ratio, change meats, change spices, add things like veggies/olives/etc. and almost always come up with excellent results. My lamb ragu, which is based on a basic Bolognese is one of my best non-cookbook recipes that I make.

Best,
Michael

**Marcella Hazan or Lynne Rosetto-Kaspar would be good sources here. I also recommend this post which carries a lot of good tips and perspective on the sauce.

lougord99 wrote:On a recent 'Splendid Table', Lynn Rosetto Casper said that one of the keys to good pasta sauce is to cook your pasta about 1 minute less than normal. Take a few tablespoons of the pasta water and add it to the sauce, drain the pasta and add it to the sauce pan and cook for 1 minute.

This is a good tip for quicker sauces and serves a number of purposes (seasoning, loosening) but I only do it if I think I need it. Also, I think this is not something you would do with a long-simmered sauce like a marinara or a ragu.

eatchicago wrote:If I had to list one thing as "the secret", I'd say it's time...

For many sauces, I agree. But another "secret" is that there is an inverse relationship between the amount of time you have and the amount of money you should spend on your olive oil. If you're pressed for time, just take whatever you've done up in the flash of the pan, toss it with the pasta, and add very high quality olive oil to finish (don't cook it). Great olive oil by itself makes a fine pasta sauce and takes no time at all to make (unless you're the producer).

Kennyz wrote:

eatchicago wrote:If I had to list one thing as "the secret", I'd say it's time...

For many sauces, I agree. But another "secret" is that there is an inverse relationship between the amount of time you have and the amount of money you should spend on your olive oil. If you're pressed for time, just take whatever you've done up in the flash of the pan, toss it with the pasta, and add very high quality olive oil to finish (don't cook it). Great olive oil by itself makes a fine pasta sauce and takes no time at all to make (unless you're the producer).

A good point. I think it's important to split the conversation between simmered sauces and quick sauces. Very often, I dress pasta with good olive oil, good cheese finely grated, a touch of acid, and maybe a roasted vegetable.

There are many sauces where time is not a factor.

So what I'm getting here is that it's not a bad idea to start tonight's sauce right now, at 9:30 am? Does refrigeration affect the taste at all?

My husband (who makes a pretty good sauce, not restaurant-quality though) emailed me his thoughts on the matter, which were:

"blend up the tomatoes and put the mush into a pot.
cook it slowly while stirring and watch it thicken and turn a brighter shade of red.
add to that a little bit of honey (add it drop by drop, tasting each time to make sure it is slightly less acidic, but not sweet).
stop adding honey before it tastes sweet.
add a few splashes of balsamic vinegar.
taste to see if it tastes sort of rich and full, as opposed to empty, meaningless tomato hell.
add a lot of garlic.
add a pinch of cumin.
add a pinch of white pepper.
add a pinch of fennel seeds.
add a pinch of basil.
add a pinch of oregano.
taste it and add more things accordingly.
keep stirring."

Poetic, isn't it? The honey bit worries me, the last time I made pasta sauce I inadvertently added too much, creating a tomato dessert. The line between "just right" and "too sweet" seems rather thin, and one thing I do not excel at is stopping just short of this line. I'm more likely to add way too much of something and just tuck away the knowledge for next time.

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:So what I'm getting here is that it's not a bad idea to start tonight's sauce right now, at 9:30 am? Does refrigeration affect the taste at all?

My husband (who makes a pretty good sauce, not restaurant-quality though) emailed me his thoughts on the matter, which were:

"blend up the tomatoes and put the mush into a pot.
cook it slowly while stirring and watch it thicken and turn a brighter shade of red.
add to that a little bit of honey (add it drop by drop, tasting each time to make sure it is slightly less acidic, but not sweet).
stop adding honey before it tastes sweet.
add a few splashes of balsamic vinegar.
taste to see if it tastes sort of rich and full, as opposed to empty, meaningless tomato hell.
add a lot of garlic.
add a pinch of cumin.
add a pinch of white pepper.
add a pinch of fennel seeds.
add a pinch of basil.
add a pinch of oregano.
taste it and add more things accordingly.
keep stirring."

Poetic, isn't it? The honey bit worries me, the last time I made pasta sauce I inadvertently added too much, creating a tomato dessert. The line between "just right" and "too sweet" seems rather thin, and one thing I do not excel at is stopping just short of this line. I'm more likely to add way too much of something and just tuck away the knowledge for next time.

Regarding refrigeration, most things that spend a long time on the stove will improve after spending a night in the fridge. I always like my ragus a little better the next day. Also, I usually make an large batch and freeze a portion or two. Time in the freezer tends to dull the flavors, but it makes a darn good last-minute meal.

If you're just trying to make a marinara or a fully-tomato based sauce, you don't need all day, only a couple hours, maybe two and a half.

Regarding your husband's recipe, I have a number of issues with it, but if you like it I don't want to rip it apart

For the quick tomato sauce, see here:
viewtopic.php?p=45915#45915

You don't need all day: this sauce takes 20 minutes or so.

Many other ways to dress pasta are found under "primi" here:
viewtopic.php?p=55649#p55649

For a good pasta dish, I also think it's important to make sure your pasta cooking water is well seasoned. A "pinch" of salt in the water is not sufficient. I always taste the water to make sure it's seasoned. I think that helps the overall flavor of the final pasta dish.

P.S. adding to what Kenny says above about using good olive oil, you also want to use good tomatoes. Except for the short period of time when excellent ripe tomatoes are available, you want to use canned ITALIAN tomatoes, preferably San Marzano. They are canned when ripe, unlike the American brands, and you just squish them with a wooden spoon and let them cook down for about 20 minutes. No sugar or honey needed to correct for the unripe tomatoes!

eatchicago wrote:Regarding your husband's recipe, I have a number of issues with it, but if you like it I don't want to rip it apart

I'm not married to it. What do you think?

A lot depends upon whether you want a Sunday gravy meat sauce, or a meatless tomato sauce. The former category includes long, all-day simmers, the latter doesn't -- and shouldn't -- take nearly as long. (After some amount of time, you're just cooking the tomatoes to death.) In fact, my favorite tomato sauce is done in 45 minutes to an hour -- Marcella Hazan's quick tomato sauce. The reason why meat sauces take so long is because the sauce -- and the acid inherent in it -- serves as the means to braise some tougher cuts of meat. But if I'm going with a straight tomato sauce, I think more in terms of vegetable stock. After a certain amount of time in the pot, there's not much more the vegetables have to give.

Although everyone's sauce recipe is sacred and untouchable, the major issue I personally have with your husband's recipe is the lack of aromatics/soffrito/mirepoix. If you're going to put a pot of tomatoes on the stove, letting them get cozy with aromatics (as well as any other herbs) for an hour or two will flavor the sauce immensely and add a lot of depth.

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:

eatchicago wrote:Regarding your husband's recipe, I have a number of issues with it, but if you like it I don't want to rip it apart

I'm not married to it. What do you think?

I'm making a few assumptions about what type of sauce you're going for here.

Mainly, I think his technique is backwards. He's simmering down tomatoes and then adding ingredients instead of building a flavor base and adding tomatoes to it.

#1: This really depends on the flavor you're going for, but I believe more often than not, you'll want to start out with at least some onion sweated slowly in olive oil. If you're going to cook a long time, you may also appreciate some celery and carrot. A small bit of carrot, finely minced (and good tomatoes, like Amata points out) will obviate the need for any sugar or honey.

#2: A good rule of thumb for any cooking is that spices should go into the fat before the liquid is added. You'll want to add your dried spices to the sweated vegetables. Most every spice is significantly more fat soluble than water soluble. You'll develop a better basis of flavor if you add things like your cumin first, before the tomatoes. If you have fresh herbs you want to use, like basil or oregano, add these right at the very end of the cooking process.

#3: I am firmly against "a lot of garlic" in a tomato sauce. In, fact the only time I'd use a lot of garlic is if I wanted a garlic sauce. One of the things that wows you in restaurant sauces is the balance of flavors. A lot of garlic is the enemy of balance. If you like garlic, use a modest amount, less than you think you need, and add it to the sweated vegetables (before the tomatoes go in, in step #1).

#4: Vinegar should not be necessary, especially balsamic. The only time I've added acid to a tomato sauce is when I was unhappy with the tomatoes.

#5: You don't need to stir too much.

Overall, I think he's simply adding too much stuff (sugars, vinegar, spices). One of the things I've come to learn about Italian cookery is that "restraint" is a key ingredient. Use a few good quality ingredients in good balance with some basic technique and don't do too much to them and you'll come up with good results.

Most importantly, you'll learn a ton about sauces if you try some classic, time-tested recipes a few times.

Best
Michael

Many good things said already, and you're already seeing the split between quick sauces and long sauces. On a day to day basis, I tend to do quick sauces that take no more than 10-20 minutes for what I presume are obvious reasons. Once every couple of months, I bust out the huge pot and do a big honking batch of Bolognese. That frequently stays on the stove for 15+ hours (though this is probably overkill... I bring it along very slowly).

Heavily salted water, finishing the pasta in the sauce, a splash of the pasta water, killer ingredients... these have all been said.

The most zen-like tip for making better sauce is to simply use less of it. Counterintuitive, but true. A pasta that seems a little ho-hum will often pop if you just use half the amount of sauce.

And I completely agree with the previous assessments of the sauce you mention. Way too busy.

I've learned to make sauce from my Sicilian grandmother and aunts and uncles. Good olive oil, cover the bottom of the pan, add an onion and a couple cloves of garlic until tender, do not brown. add tomatoes, I usually do a combo of crushed, diced, puree, really, whatever I have. salt, pepper. The oregano and all the other stuff you add seem unnecessary and may even make your sauce bitter. Use the basics. Add fresh basil at the end before serving. If you feel that the sauce is too acidic, add a pinch of baking soda, I never add sugar/honey/vinegar/wine all sounds horrrible to me (although I have one uncle that adds bouillon or meat stock to his). This is a good base sauce, I don't cook it all day, but at a slow simmer, stirring every now and then, adjusting water, I like mine thinner, hubby likes it thick. If you're used to a sweet jarred sauce, you make not like this, but I have never, not once eaten jarred sauce. This sauce is just too easy to make , to buy it jarred. Made it yesterday as a matter of fact.

I'm not really good at marinara, but I haven't tried very often. A few very Italian cooks have shared random secrets with me. Everyone has their own secret or method.
Deeper tomato flavor can be had by adding a lil bit of brewed decaf coffee. Just a little.

One person said their secret was to combine tomato paste and minced garlic in a sautee pan coated in olive oil, and to smear the paste with a spatula over a low flame continuously until the garlic all but disappeared, and the paste slightly changed color. Then add crushed tomatoes and other ingredients for a long low simmer.

Same person also said oregano is for pizza sauce only, and should never be put in marinara.

I myself make gravy, not marinara. Gimme a cheap jar of pasta sauce, and a bunch of stew meat sill attached to a bone, and it's all good.

Lately we have really been enjoying this simple sauce, especially since local food markets have been carrying very decent roma tomatoes from Mexico.

Recipe from "New Italian Cooking," by Scott Conant of Scarpetta featured on Bourdain's "No Reservations".

I opted for eatchicago's game plan, and skipped the vinegar and honey. The tomatoes are heirlooms picked up at Stanley's yesterday - nothing really special, but still better than the tomatoes I've gotten from other markets of late. Though if I'd known he was going to want pasta I would have picked up fresh herbs and tomatoes from the Green City Market while I was there the other day.

The taste I took before putting it in the fridge was promising! The tomatoes were sufficiently sweet and flavorful to obviate the need for the honey. I will serve it up tonight and see how it goes over.

**Marcella Hazan or Lynne Rosetto-Kaspar would be good sources here. I also recommend this post which carries a lot of good tips and perspective on the sauce.

or the quick tomato sauce, see here:
viewtopic.php?p=45915#45915

You don't need all day: this sauce takes 20 minutes or so.

Many other ways to dress pasta are found under "primi" here:
viewtopic.php?p=55649#p55649

It's okay. You can mention me by name.

I must say, I find there are very few non-Italians I've met who do a good job in this regard, and not as many Italo-Americans as you might expect either.

Suzy -- My advice is to start simple, as in the post Amata linked to above, which gives the guidelines for the basic tomato-based dressing for pasta:

Antonius wrote:In Italian cuisine, the simplest tomato sauce, sugo di pomodoro, serves as the basis for a potentially infinite number of daughter-sauces, but the mother sauce is itself a delicious and popular dressing for pasta. Of course, all depends on the quality of the tomatoes. The Neapolitans, who are with justification regarded as being among the earliest of peoples to appreciate fully and experiment widely with the use of tomatoes in the kitchen, make their basic sugo di pomodoro in a maximally simple way; as is almost always the case in Italian cooking, success depends on the quality of a very limited set of ingredients and the ability of the cook to adjust relative amounts of ingredients and timing in the steps of cooking to the conditions of the day. Here are a few notes:

• The ingredients for the basic sugo di pomodoro are:
- olive oil (or lard)
- garlic or onion
- tomatoes (peeled and/or seeded, as necessary)
- salt and black pepper

• The need to peel and seed the tomatoes depends in the first place on the characteristics of the tomatoes being used. Some, even many, people do not find seeding of the tomatoes necessary in most instances.

• One uses either onion or garlic and, by individual preference, either leaves this element in the sauce or removes it after it has been used to flavour the oil.

• Simple sugo di pomodoro is not cooked a long time and, indeed, can be (with certain adjustments in preparation of the tomatoes and use of olive oil rather than lard) be used raw.

• The most likely first addition to the sugo di pomodoro would be a fresh herb and in much of Italy, the most likely herbs to be added for using the sauce as a condiment for pasta are, of course, basil and parsley.

In the late summer and early fall, when genuinely ripe tomatoes of high quality are available here, a simple sugo di pomodoro enhanced by the addition of fresh basil is my favourite tomato-based dressing for pasta.

Of course, the possible dressings for pasta are infinite and individual creativity is something one should employ -- BUT I do think it makes sense to learn the basics first and for that the best way is to try to gain experience following traditional Italian recipes and building a foundation of technical knowledge and aesthetic understanding from that. The lack of that grounding is what renders so much of the treatment of pasta in this country an orgy of overwrought and confused combinations brought together by means of inept execution.

Bon pro'!
Antonius

A few things that I always add to enhance the flavor of a long-cooked tomato sauce are: a little wine of any kind*, a little beef boullion if the sauce doesn't already contain beef, and at the end, some milk or half-and-half**.

* Pursuant to my belief that a sauce should always contain some oil, some water, and some alcohol in order to activate all flavor components

** a Mario Batali trick

I have been doing this recipe that I modified a few times for many years and my family and friends always ask me to do it again and again when they visit.
I used to do the tomato sauce from fresh plum tomatoes in the summer, then I switched to peeled canned whole plum tomatoes from the San Marzano region in Italy. (I use the Bella Terra brand from Racconto that I find at Fresh Farms International in Niles)
But when I am in a hurry I use a ready to use marinara spaghetti sauce in a jar (from Trader Joe's) and it works fine too.
If you decide to use the canned peeled plum tomatoes, for 4 people use almost two 28 oz cans of them and make sure you cut the hard tip where the stem used to be, and seed them before coarsely chopping them.

Here is the simplified easy version of my recipe:

SPAGHETTI A LA PROVENCALE

For 4 people:
Preparation: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• One package of (thin) Spaghetti (I prefer the Italian brand Racconto or Trader Joe’s Organic)
• 2 large peeled yellow onions, chopped
• 5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and diced. Remove central greenish sprout if any before dicing.
• 4 sprigs of fresh tyme or 1 1/2 table spoon of dried thyme.
• 12 to 15 pitted Kalamata black olives, remove the brine by gently boiling them for 3 minutes.
• One jar of Tomato basil sauce (I buy Trader Joe’s cheap but good Traditional Marinara Sauce)
• 1/2 Lb of ground round beef (buy a little more if you have to feed hungry young men)
• 4 or 5 medium-size very fresh and clean white mushrooms (sliced)
• 2 tablespoon of Italian tomato paste. I like the imported Italian paste in aluminum soft tubes, but any canned Italian import will do.
• 1/2 a cup of extra-Virgin olive oil (a Spanish or Greek one will do fine)
• Half a bottle (about 2 cups) of a dry rosé wine with some fruit like a ''Vieille Ferme'' rosé, or Ferme Julien Rosé from T J's (& 5.99). If you want to go a little fancier, get a bottle of Costières de Nimes rosé like Grande Cassagne (about $9.00) .
• 1 large bay leaf
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 a teaspoon of Cayene pepper

Cooking the sauce

Chop onions and dice garlic, then gently sauté them together with a teaspoon of thyme in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, in an 11 or 12 inches ''Calphalon'' or other good quality non-stick pan for about 12 to 14 minutes at relatively low heat. They should not get brown, but become soft and translucent.
If mushrooms are clean and very young, lightly brush them to remove any leftover dirt, cut the stem halfay and slice them. If they are not clean, have some dirt, and the stem is brownish and getting spongeous, cut 80% of the stem and gently peel the outer skin of the cap with a sharp small knife starting from underneath , close to the stem. Then slice them. Save them on a plate for later.
Sauté the ground beef in a small pan in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, stir it all the time with a wooden spoon to transform the beef chunks in tiny little balls. Remove the oil and water left over after cooking is completed. The ground beef should be gray and not red anymore. Save on a plate but do not refrigerate.
Pour the tomato sauce from the jar into the pan where the onion and garlic has been cooked, add the bayleaf, stir and bring to a gentle simmer. Add 2 cups of rose wine and stir well . Add 2 tablespoons of the tomato paste, stir well. Cook uncovered over low heat for about 8 minutes, then add the sliced mushrooms. Cook for 5 more minutes then add the meat and the olives. Then season with 4 rounds of the pepper mill and 2 pinches of salt. Add the cayenne pepper. stir. Cook uncovered very gently for 10 more minutes.

Cooking the pasta.

While preparing the sauce, boil 5 quarts of water in a high stainless-steel pot, like a pasta cooker. When water is boiling add one tablespoon of olive oil and one teaspoon of salt in the water. Put in a little more than 3/4 of the content of the box (or the whole box if you are very hungry) of spaghetti and immediately stir the pasta with a big spaghetti special-dented spoon so that the pasta does not stick together. When the spaghetti are all separated bring back to a boil and count about 9 to 11 minutes for '' al dente'' .
Pour the pasta in a colander and then in a big round bowl, add a table spoon of olive oil and stir well. Add the sauce on top of the pasta and stir well.

And that's it.

eatchicago wrote:

Suzy Creamcheese wrote:

eatchicago wrote:Regarding your husband's recipe, I have a number of issues with it, but if you like it I don't want to rip it apart

I'm not married to it. What do you think?

I'm making a few assumptions about what type of sauce you're going for here.

Mainly, I think his technique is backwards. He's simmering down tomatoes and then adding ingredients instead of building a flavor base and adding tomatoes to it.

#1: This really depends on the flavor you're going for, but I believe more often than not, you'll want to start out with at least some onion sweated slowly in olive oil. If you're going to cook a long time, you may also appreciate some celery and carrot. A small bit of carrot, finely minced (and good tomatoes, like Amata points out) will obviate the need for any sugar or honey.

#2: A good rule of thumb for any cooking is that spices should go into the fat before the liquid is added. You'll want to add your dried spices to the sweated vegetables. Most every spice is significantly more fat soluble than water soluble. You'll develop a better basis of flavor if you add things like your cumin first, before the tomatoes. If you have fresh herbs you want to use, like basil or oregano, add these right at the very end of the cooking process.

#3: I am firmly against "a lot of garlic" in a tomato sauce. In, fact the only time I'd use a lot of garlic is if I wanted a garlic sauce. One of the things that wows you in restaurant sauces is the balance of flavors. A lot of garlic is the enemy of balance. If you like garlic, use a modest amount, less than you think you need, and add it to the sweated vegetables (before the tomatoes go in, in step #1).

#4: Vinegar should not be necessary, especially balsamic. The only time I've added acid to a tomato sauce is when I was unhappy with the tomatoes.

#5: You don't need to stir too much.
...

#6: Skip the blender and crush tomatoes by hand. If you have communicable diseases, use a potato masher or have your husband cook. Tomato seeds have a wonderful, irreplaceable flavor that borders on bitter, but is sublime when they’re treated right. If you use a metal machine blade on 'em, the unpleasant bitterness takes over, which might make you want all of those over-the-top spices and sweeteners after all.

The tomatoes are heirlooms picked up at Stanley's yesterday

One other suggestion is that heirlooms are not automatically the best for pasta sauce - it depends on the variety. Preferably you need a Roma type tomato and canned San Marzanos may be better than a lot of fresh tomatoes, depending on ripeness.

My husband tasted the sauce and said, "Wow, that's pretty good! You must have followed my directions this time." Should I tell him?

From personal experience the best tomato sauce starts with San Marzano tomatoes. From there on the sauce develops itself.

Some Italians say the secret to good sauce but not the light quick sauce, but more the gravy kind is to use neckbones. I have not made it like that yet but I'd like to try.

There's a Marcella Hazan recipe which I don't have access to at the moment that includes a lot of butter in the tomato sauce. It's a fabulous recipe. I like a bright tomato sauce with a little onion, garlic and carrot and some basil but a little butter or half and half (or cream if you're feeling festive) at the end makes a lovely velvety smooth finish. Pasta water does do a similar thing but the cream/butter combo is yummy.

I very rarely buy jarred sauces because I find a good tomato sauce to be so easy to make. And quick.

earthlydesire wrote:There's a Marcella Hazan recipe which I don't have access to at the moment that includes a lot of butter in the tomato sauce. It's a fabulous recipe.

Tomato, butter, onion, salt. And the onion is removed. When the tomatoes are top notch, it's my favorite.

earthlydesire wrote:There's a Marcella Hazan recipe which I don't have access to at the moment that includes a lot of butter in the tomato sauce. It's a fabulous recipe.

It's posted upthread.