This tomato sauce is an essential component to my arsenal of quick and simple, delicious meals. A batch is made in my kitchen nearly every week because it takes under 5 minutes of prep work and it’s the glue to dozens of my favorite meals that can be made in minutes. You know I love me a meal in minutes. 

The recipe is a twist on Marcella Hazan’s famous Tomato Sauce that I’ve been making for years. Her sauce has 4 ingredients – tomatoes, butter, onion and salt. That’s it. Glorious, right? I use grass fed-butter and cut the amount in half, and then I add garlic and basil. It’s so so simple, yet so so versatile.

If you’re thinking butter in the tomato sauce is weird and excessive, you’re wrong. So wrong. Why would one not put butter in tomato sauce? Butter makes everything better. Duh. It gives the sauce a smooth, rich flavor that cuts the acid of the tomatoes so well. Sugar will also cut the acid and balance the sauce, but wouldn’t you rather use buttah? I thought so. Grass-fed butter is a healthy fat, and we know healthy fats support metabolism and feeds our cells, while sugar most certainly does not. 

Speaking of sugar, let’s talk about store-bought marinara or spaghetti sauce. Have one in your pantry? Go pick it up and check out the sugar content. Even the purest pasta sauces will have some sugar, as there are natural sugars in tomatoes, but most have sugar added during processing. A half of a jar of typical spaghetti sauce has around 12 g of sugar. Yikes! Half of this Simple Tomato Basil Sauce will taste 1000xs better and ring in around 5 g of sugar.

One of my favorite ways to use this sauce is to make Eggs in Purgatory, a recipe I make at least once a week for breakfast or for dinner at the end of the week when I have “no food in the house!!” Feel free to call this recipe “Eggs in Tomato Sauce” as that is exactly what it is and the real name is weird and somewhat creepy. This sauce is mostly made of up of carbs and healthy fats, so it’s really easy to get a balanced meal using it. Here are some of my favorite ways to eat it –

• with pasta and meatballs

• over zoodles and ground turkey

• with pan-fried tofu (and a side of veggies!)

• as a pizza sauce

• over chicken with parmesan and more basil

• in a potato boat with ground sausage and mozzarella

• over polenta with shredded chicken or Italian sausage

You can totally change this up and make it your own, depending on your menu that week:

• Add a few glugs of organic half-and-half to make a cream sauce.

• Make enchilada sauce in a pinch: leave out the basil and add 10 oz tomato paste, 1/4 c chili powder, 1 tsp dried oregano and cumin.

• Add a few shakes of red pepper flakes for some heat.

• Pour in 1/2 c red or white wine at the beginning of cooking for a new depth of flavor.

Simple Tomato Basil Sauce

Author: Megan Hansen, RDN, LD

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 5 mins

Serves: makes 4 cups

Super simple, versatile tomato sauce recipe that you’ll find yourself making every week.

Ingredients

• 2 28-oz cans of whole tomatoes

• 4 Tbsp grass-fed butter

• 2 onions, peeled and halved

• 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed

• 1/2 Tbsp salt

• 12 basil leaves, torn

Instructions

1. Combine tomatoes, butter, onions, garlic (give this a good smash with the back of your knife!), and salt in a large, heavy bottom saucepan.

2. Bring to a boil, then simmer on very low heat for 1 hour. Stir occasionally and crush tomatoes up with the back of a spoon as it cooks.

3. Remove onion. Remove garlic, if desired.

4. Stir in basil.

5. Check for seasonings – you may need to add more salt, based on your preferences.

Eggs in Purgatory

Author: Megan Hansen, RDN, LD

Total time: 4 mins

Serves: 1

A pretty fancy little whole foods breakfast in under 5 minutes. The best part? It can be made ahead of time, put into Tupperware, and taken to work. It won’t be as pretty, but it’ll taste just as good!

Ingredients

• 3/4 c Simple Tomato and Basil Sauce

• 1/4 c broth, water, or coconut milk

• 2 farm-fresh eggs

• Salt, pepper and chopped basil

Instructions

1. Heat sauce and broth or water in a small skillet on medium heat.

2. Crack 2 eggs right into the pan over the sauce.

3. Cover pan and cook for 2 minutes for over eggs over medium or 3-4 minutes if you like your eggs totally cooked through.

4. Season with salt, pepper and chopped basil.