Growing up my family and I ate a lot of pasta with red sauce. My mom and grandma always spent the better part of Sundays cooking red sauce. It wasn’t something that could be made quickly. When I saw this sauce only took 45 minutes I was skeptical. This is no substitute for my mom’s sauce but it’s a nice change of pace. The original recipe did not call for garlic. But what would red sauce be without garlic? I’d rather not know.
Also, I don’t use as much butter as the original recipe calls for and I use more tomatoes. We prefer it this way.
I like to serve this with mini farfalle, but basically any pasta would work.

Cut onion in half and mince garlic

Melt butter over low heat

Add the garlic…

and the onion…

and the tomatoes

Simmer for 45 minutes

Remove onions and reserve for later

Season with salt…

and pepper

I like to freeze the sauce and take it out the night before
Ingredients
2 28-ounce cans of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
4 cloves garlic, minced
kosher salt and pepper to taste
Directions
Melt butter in medium size saucepan; add garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add onion halves and tomatoes. Simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the onion halves but reserve them for later. Season sauce with salt and pepper.
Crush the tomatoes with a wooden spoon or potato masher. Serve with pasta or your choice.
Note: The first time we made this we didn’t care for it, but we had leftover sauce, which we froze. A few weeks later we ate the frozen batch and loved it. Now I double the recipe and separate it into glass containers to freeze. When I separate the sauce into bowls I make sure to put an onion into each bowl. It’s very convenient for weeknight meals.
Source: adapted from Smitten Kitchen, originally from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Italian Cooking