Reading · 40 Ingredients Forever

40 Ingredients Forever is devoted to recipes that are abundant in flavor and joy yet streamlined in process and shopping—because they’ll all be made using my 40 go-to ingredients.

Only fools futz with Marcella Hazan’s perfect tomato sauce, in which canned or fresh tomatoes, a halved onion, butter, and salt simmer together for 45 minutes or so.

The butter softens the tomatoes’ acidity and gives the sauce a creaminess, and the onion sweetens the sauce without making it oniony. You don’t need garlic or herbs. You barely even need cheese.

And yet.

When you’ve made a recipe dozens of times, you start to see which parts are essential and where there’s room for creativity. Getting up close to a recipe helps you see its potential! And that familiarity makes it less scary to switch things up… (This is also why I like cooking with the same 40 ingredients.)

So instead of simmering Marcella sauce on the stove, where it spits and sputters, today’s recipe roasts the same ingredients in the oven for a sweeter, richer rendition.

The onion chars. The tomatoes caramelize. The butter browns and mingles with the concentrated tomato juices.

This method is especially useful with summer’s imperfect tomatoes—the bland and bruised, the bags of “sauce tomatoes” sold at a discount. The oven smooths out their rough edges and coaxes out their sweetness.

In the end, this recipe isn’t better than Marcella’s version. It’s just a more golden, roasted, savory expression of it. It fits a different craving and moment — when your tomatoes need the heat of the oven to be their best, when you need something hands-off, and when maybe (just maybe) turning on the oven sounds fun again. I’m not quite there yet, but that time is coming.

Makes 3 cups for 4 to 6 servings

2 to 3 pounds cherry or other ripe tomatoes
1 yellow onion
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
Salt
1 pound pasta

1. Heat the oven to 400°F. Toss 2 to 3 pounds cherry tomatoes onto a sheet pan. If you’re using larger tomatoes, cut them in half or quarters first. Cut 1 yellow onion into six wedges through the root and thinly slice 5 tablespoons butter. Add the onion, butter, and a big pinch of salt to the sheet pan. It might feel wrong to send the tomatoes into the oven without oil, but the butter will do that job once it melts.

2. Roast the tomatoes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes and onion are soft and blistered brown in spots, 30 to 40 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through so the butter “tips” into the empty spaces and keeps juices from burning.

3. Now you have a choice: You can blend all of this into a smooth sauce, or you can mash it with a fork or potato masher into a coarse sauce. Either way, be sure to scrape all the browned bits from the pan; you can even add a few tablespoons of water, then scrape to unstuck them. (Sauce will keep refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 3 months.)

4. When you’re ready to eat, boil 1 pound pasta in salted water until al dente. Reserve 1 ½ cups pasta water, then drain. Return the pasta to the pot, along with the tomato sauce and ½ cup pasta water. Toss over medium-high until the pasta is coated in sauce. Add pasta water as needed until glossy.