Rustic Italian Tomato & Passata Sauce

This rustic tomato and passata sauce starts with onion and garlic gently sautéed in olive oil. Fresh diced tomatoes are cooked down until soft before passata is added, giving you the best of both worlds: the freshness and texture of whole tomatoes with the smooth richness of puréed tomatoes.

It's an easy everyday sauce for pasta, bean balls, meatballs, chicken, eggplant—or anything else that needs a good tomato sauce.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 small onion, finely diced

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 3–4 ripe tomatoes, diced

• 2 cups tomato passata

• 1 teaspoon dried oregano

• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

• ½ teaspoon dried thyme

• Salt, to taste

• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

• Optional: fresh basil or parsley for serving
  
  

Instructions

1. Sauté the aromatics.
Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the diced onion and garlic along with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Cook gently until the onion becomes soft and translucent. Keep the heat low enough that the garlic doesn't brown or burn.

2. Add the herbs.
Stir in the oregano, Italian seasoning and thyme. Let the herbs cook in the olive oil for about 30 seconds to release their flavour.

3. Cook the fresh tomatoes.
Add the diced fresh tomatoes to the pan. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes soften and begin breaking down.

Depending on how ripe your tomatoes are, this should take around 8–10 minutes.

4. Add the passata.
Pour in the tomato passata and stir everything together. Bring the sauce to a gentle simmer.

5. Simmer for 30 minutes.
Reduce the heat to low and allow the sauce to simmer gently for approximately 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

As it cooks, the fresh tomatoes will melt further into the passata and the sauce will thicken.

6. Taste and adjust.
Taste before serving and add additional salt, pepper, oregano or thyme if needed.

How to Serve It

This sauce is especially good with the Italian-style bean balls above. You can spoon the sauce over the baked bean balls or let them simmer in the finished sauce for a few minutes before serving.

Add pasta and freshly grated Parmesan, and you've got an inexpensive, comforting Italian-inspired dinner made largely from pantry staples.

Note: Since you avoid garlic, both recipes will work perfectly well without it. For your own version, I'd simply leave the garlic out rather than trying to replace it—the onion, oregano, herbs and olive oil will still give you plenty of flavour.