Good Housekeeping

Quick tomato sauce recipes

Supermarket shelves are groaning with ready-made pasta sauces. If you fancy a change, check out our delicious variations

By The Good Housekeeping Cookery TeamPublished: 05 October 2004

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Yields:

Prep Time:

10 mins

Cook Time:

35 mins

Total Time:

45 mins

Cal/Serv:

Ingredients

FOR THE TOMATO SAUCE

1 Tbsp.
vegetable oil
1
small onion, finely chopped
1
garlic clove, chopped
400 g
can chopped tomatoes

WITH TUNA:

WITH BACON:

WITH RED PEPPER AND OLIVES:

Directions

FOR THE TOMATO SAUCE
1. Step 1
  Heat the oil in a medium pan for 30sec, then add the onion and cook over a very gentle heat for 15min, stirring regularly until the onions are softened and translucent, but not browned. Add the garlic and continue to cook gently for 1min.
2. Step 2
  Add chopped tomatoes and stir well. Fill the empty tomato tin up to about half way with cold water and give it a swirl to catch any tomato juice, then add to the pan. Season the tomato sauce generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper, then turn up the heat to medium and allow the sauce to simmer for about 15min until it’s thickened slightly.
3. Step 3
  While the sauce is simmering, cook 500g pasta - spaghetti or penne are good with this sauce - in a large pan of boiling water. Drain well, reserving around a cup of the cooking water. Return pasta to the pan, add the tomato sauce and toss well. Add a splash or two of cooking water to loosen the pasta and sauce.
WITH TUNA:
1. Step 1
  Drain an 80g can of tuna in oil or brine (you can use some of the oil to cook the onion in step 1). When the tomato sauce has thickened and finished simmering, stir in the drained tuna and cook for 2–3min to warm through. Toss with the pasta. Serves 4
WITH BACON:
1. Step 1
  Chop two rashers of rindless streaky bacon and add to the pan with the onion. Cook for 10–15min until bacon is browned, then add the tomatoes and complete the recipe. Serves 4
WITH RED PEPPER AND OLIVES:
1. Step 1
  Add one deseeded and sliced red pepper to the pan when frying the onion. When the sauce has finished simmering, add six pitted, chopped olives and cook for 1–2min to heat through. Serves 4.

For dinner

Grate over 50g (2oz) Cheddar cheese and season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Per Serving:

Calories: 60
Total carbs: 6 g
Total fat: 3 g

The Good Housekeeping Cookery Team

An experienced and highly skilled team of food writers, stylists and digital content producers, the Good Housekeeping Cookery Team is a close-knit squad of food obsessives. Cookery Editor Emma Franklin is our resident chilli obsessive and barbecue expert, who spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays poking round the local supermarkets seeking out new and exciting foods. Senior Cookery Writer Alice Shields is a former pastry chef and baking fanatic who loves making bread and would have peanut butter with everything if she could. Her favourite carb is pasta, and our vibrant green spaghetti is her weeknight go-to. Lover of all things savoury, Senior Cookery Writer Grace Evans can be found eating crispy corn and nocellara olives at every opportunity, and will take the cheeseboard over dessert any time (though she cannot resist a slice of tres leches cake). With a wealth of professional kitchen know-how, culinary training and years of experience between them, they are all dedicated to ensuring every Good Housekeeping recipe is the best it can be, so you can trust they’ll work (and if they don’t – we’ll have the answer for why*) every time (*90% of the time the answer is: “buy an separate oven thermometer”!).

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