Basic Tomato Sauce for Pasta

My basic tomato sauce for pasta is probably a lot like what you make. It’s based on a soffritto — chopped onion, carrot, celery, and garlic — and the taste is almost as much about those vegetables as it is tomato. There are plenty of other tomato sauces for pasta with different additions, including a few raw sauces, notably pesto trapanese, but the sauce based on a soffritto is my first resort. I don’t measure the ingredients (except once, recently, to confirm the proportions below). The size of a whole carrot or onion, even if you aim at just what you need, is variable, and there’s no reason not to use it all, whether it runs a little over or falls a little short. I like the small differences in taste that result.