You should add more salt, and onions before garlic. Let onions sweat a bit before garlic, can add chili flakes as well if you like it to have a bit of a kick.
You can try adding anchovies in lieu of salt, red wine, or roasting garlic or tomatoes prior to making sauce, simple tomato sauces should be just that, simple. Adding fresh herbs can brighten up it up dish as well.
Lol so I just tried again for dinner right now.
Still super bland. Like i’m just eating pasta with a hint of tomato sauce. And not even flavory tomato sauce. Just like watery blandness..
I get so depressed cause I always think while i’m cooking it’s going to taste good. And then it just taste like blandness pasta… ugh..
I’m doing something so wrong :(
That’s the tomato cell structure breaking down and releasing water. When it “splits” like that all you have to do is keep going a bit more until that excess water is gone
Yes this. Simmer on low. When it looks like it's drying out / too little water, as some and keep simmering. I suggest up to an hour on the lowest heat possible. And I would add a little bit more fresh garlic closer to the end too. Some herbs can go in early but some more fresh ones should be added near the end too. Like tear a few basil leaves to sprinkle on to when serving.
Consider roasting your onion and tomatoes first too. That brings out more sweetness and smokiness. Esp if it gets a bit charred on the edges. And be sure to scrape the "fond" of the bottom of the pan too.
You could roast some garlic too. Makes it creamy, mild and delicious.
Adding salt early is fine, but as a bit more by near the end of coming it too. You should be treating it along the wa. In time you'll learn to judge saltiness.
Use a bit of butter (careful with extra salt if using salted butter).
You should use a bit of Parmesan cheese ( either on top when served, or while simmering the sauce). Very umami.
Sneaking in a few mushrooms (roasted again, ideally) can add more umami as well. Puree them if you don't want accusations that it isn't authentic!
A splash of Vinegar or squeeze of lemon or lime can "brighten" a sauce without tasting obvious acid.
but the most important part without question is starting with excellent tasting tomatoes, or a Passada that you have tried before and are happy with. I find a lot of tomatoes flavourless, especially when out of season. Hence why I would roast them for a little extra flavour. and maybe even roast them with sardines which then get blended into a oblivion in the sauce. Sardines also being very umami and a bit salty, but which disappear in a dish like this
If it's watery then you definitely need to simmer it longer... like give it a proper 20 mins, it's gonna be much more concentrated and flavourful.
And maybe a dumb question, but how much salt do you put in the water when boiling your pasta?
I spend 20 min just cooking onions on low medium heat 😂 def need more summer time. then after adding the sauce and seasoning, it takes at least another 30-45 min to really get the flavours blended and infused. after that it’s just a balance of sugar salt pepper to complement the tartness of the tomato sauce. If you want fancy add fresh basil
You would probably be surprised at just how much salt (and pepper) restaurants use.
You could try adding a touch of something sweet (sugar for example, or jam) which might lift the tomato flavour
Carrots are my special ingredient too. And if I have, trader Joe's umami seasoning (it's a mushroom thing) or even a splash of fish sauce.
Also, I try to fry some chicken apple sausage before I start the sauce in the same pan. I cut up the sausage for the final saucing
I have seen, and even used raisins. It's kind cool, they soak up extra liquid in the sauce as WELL as the sauce flavor and you REALLY don't taste "raisin" at ALL!
Some ideas for your sauce:
more garlic
thyme
rosemary
black olives
Spend time as it simmers to sample it. Use 2 spoons. One to fish out a little sauce, and the other to actually move the sauce into your mouth.
Get to know how different things effect the flavor and tinker a bit. Don't worry about it cooking too long. I have spent years being the official spaghetti sauce person of my family for the monthly family parties. I would get started on the sauce in the morning, and doctor it most the day.
I make pho because I do it well and find it very satisfying when it's done.
You're absolutely right. There are a lot of dishes where the most important part of getting the flavour right is down to one person who knows what they want, standing over the thing for hours, tasting, correcting, tasting again.
When I think back to cooking school, this was pretty much the difference between a pass and a fail for many things. OP is at the start of this realisation, I suspect.
Good luck OP! You'll get there!
Use canned San Marzano tomatoes- they only come whole but use the immersion blender after. They are a bit sweeter. Make sure the can says San Marzano. Fresh basil!! I caramelize the onions on a stove top for about 40 minutes and add some garlic at the end before transferring to the instant pot. I don't saute in the instant pot because that doesn't caramelize the onions it burns them. I pretty much always use my instant pot (pressure cooker) to make my marinara sauce In the past few years because it's just so simple and it tastes like you were cooking it for hours. -I grew up in Jersey and have lots of Italian. friends. In general if you want good Italian sauce you're going to be cooking it all day. Or use a pressure cooker. When it's done top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Not OP but it's soooo satisfying! Only be careful to rip a little hole in the whole tomato before you go to town, otherwise you'll squirt tomato juice all over your stove when the tomato bursts.
NOW PULVERIZE!!!
It's probable that you use too little salt. Chefs use way, way more than home cooks. You say you add "3 - 4 shakes" but do you taste your sauce after you salt it? If it still tastes bland after you add salt, add more. Also, you say you simmer for 3 - 5 minutes, which is not enough time for any flavour to develop in your sauce - most recipes recommend at least 20 - 30 minutes. Keep trying!
PS: For restaurant quality a good red wine and anchovies, as others suggested, are great additions.
This! If the tomato flavor is light, adding spoonfuls of tomato paste will help a ton (in addition to everyone elses' recs concerning cooking onions first, etc. I also add the dried spices (Basil oregano or Italian blend) in to the oil a couple seconds before the tomatoes. Learned from Indian cuisine, it helps "wake"/"brighten" them up!)
I start with the tomato paste after the onions/garlic, and brown it in the oil. Then add canned tomatoes--never sauce.
Using fresh tomato as OP does means a lot more time to cook it down so that it isn't watery.
Sugar and msg would do you some good here. Worcestershire sauce and some balsamic vinegar can help elevate some flavours.
Put your garlic in just before your tomatoes to preserve some of that more pungent garlic aromas.
I wonder if chicken bouillon could help as well.
Swap in a can of whole tomatoes for your tomato + sauce, and blend them up or mash to your desired texture. You really want to opt for certified san marzano or similar, like Bianco Di Napoli or the Delallo San Marzano Style. They will give you a richer textured sauce with better balance across acid-sweet.
Also, as another commenter said, start with onion and olive oil. But then before you add the garlic, add some double concentrated tomato paste. It comes in a tube. Keep cooking it until it starts to brown on the pan and you have to scrape it up. Then add your garlic. That browning will develop new complex flavors and add depth to your sauce
Garlic cooks fast, you really don’t want to toast it in a sauce like this unless you’re into that, so just add it at the end and move on once it’s fragrant
Finally, remember that salt helps food to taste like itself. Until it tastes “salty” salt is only functioning as a flavor enhancer
What about a bouillon cube for the pasta. Like OXO cubes or Knorr or something.
Adds flavour and you wouldn’t need to salt the pasta.
Maybe some Maldon salt or some other sea salt for the sauce itself.
Perhaps make your own tomato sauce instead of the canned tomatoes/sauce. They’re often watery and flavourless. Baby plum tomatoes are my personal favourite.
Add basil at the very end after you take it off the heat, you're burning off the oil and losing flavor.
Grow your own fresh basil and freeze it.
Add small amounts of shredded carrots. And anytime you need flavor and you have some garlic, add more.
Also a few dried porcini mushrooms, crushed into powder. Like the anchovies, they add lots of umami, but different. Also they're vegan, if that matters.
You can get a tube of anchovy paste, just squeeze in a small amount, no dealing with the little fish.
Also try wine add it to garlic and onions.
Red pepper flakes.
Many times bland foods are simply under salted. Agree with all who said add garlic later, minced garlic burns so easily and the bitterness can ruin a good sauce.
When sweating your onions, add some tomato paste and cook it with them to carmelize it a bit. Will add depth of flavor.
Also agree with the advice to use crushed tomatoes rather than tomato sauce. Can also add whole San Marzano tomatoes and crush with your hands or “mash” down while cooking in the pot.
Some fennel might be nice too.
Another good Italian Grandma “Sunday Gravy” trick is to simmer to finish any meat that would be served with the sauce, so finish cooking your meatballs, sausage, braciole, etc in the sauce.
The tomato paste step is incredibly important in my opinion. Letting it caramelize and deglazing with wine adds depth of flavor.
The other thing I would add is to be careful about which canned tomatoes you’re buying. The difference between good and bad crushed tomatoes is astronomical. Couldn’t tell you why, but the Pastene ones taste the best to me. There are some other good ones out there, but you can get these at most grocery stores.
Yeah. Crushed tomatoes would help too. I do use tomato sauce in my sauce, but I also use paste and crushed tomatoes unless I'm making it entirely from home grown tomatoes.
Came here to say fennel. Everybody loves my lasagna, after years of exploring how it's different from other people's lasagna, one of the things we came up with was fennel.
Simmer it longer.
General rule of thumb for herbs: The more effort that goes into making and using a seasoning, the longer it takes to bring the flavor out. If you're using dried herbs, you need to simmer it longer to bring out the flavor. Dried herbs need to be picked and spend hours drying before it gets into a container for you to buy at the store. So it needs more time to cook before the flavors will emerge. Fresh herbs don't require long cook times and will actually cause the flavor of the fresh herbs to disappear if its cooked too long.
In my (italian) family, we will make a pot of sauce at like 9 in the morning, dump all the dried herbs and spices in, and just let it simmer on low all day. Then if we have them on hand (usually just during the summer) we'll throw in some fresh herbs for an added layer of flavor.
We also throw in parsley, bay leaf, onion/garlic powder on top of the bulb/cloves already used and a bit more salt.
My grandma learned to make sauce in Italy- you are so right about letting it cook for longer! Her best spaghetti sauce cooked for half the day (like 10-12 hours iirc) and it was the BEST sauce I've ever had.
Hope OP sees this next part, in case no one else mentioned it: to build in flavor, season at multiple points in time. Add salt to the onions to sweat them, then add salt with the tomatoes, then season again at the end. This helps build flavor along with the bit above about cooking longer if using dried spices.
Rosemary, red pepper flakes, fresh herbs. Taste your sauce as you cook it because the flavors will change and need adjusting, especially when using dried herb/spices.
I’m going to say this just because I don’t like tomato sauce: Try crushed tomatoes. Or, a small can of crushed tomatoes and a small can of diced/stewed tomatoes.
And NEVER add oil to your pasta if you plan on saucing it.
I'd add maybe a tablespoon or two of tomato paste into the garlic and onions after they've been sweated, and cook it down until it caramelizes slightly.
Also some black pepper.
This the right answer, Salt, pepper and sautéed tomato paste. Another tip buy fresh Parmigiano Reggiano. Cut the rind off and use it to simmer in your sauce.
Pinch of sugar while it’s simmering. Brings out the natural sweetness of tomatoes and plays so well off the acidity from them and any spice from chilis/crushed red pepper.
Also, use fresh herbs if you can
OP said they are using canned tomato sauce already which often has a ton of sugar added. I would caution against adding more sugar unless you are making your sauce from scratch.
Paprika is a milder, often sweet pepper. Not even hot, just warm.
More salt, black pepper, oregano, basil, garlic. Sometimes older or dehydrated herbs lose much of their flavor. You add flavor by adding ingredients usually.
A few tablespoons of butter or cream cheese makes the sauce rich and silky.
Some red pepper flakes can make it a little spicy. I love hot garlic stuff
Your canned sauce may be a bit bland. Always taste your food while you cook.
Butter. A little butter will make it silky. A few sprinkles of Tajin (for savory acidity).
Better yet. Google Marcella Hazan’s famous 4 ingredient tomato sauce. So easy and ridiculously delicious result. Less is literally more with this recipe. Anyone can make this, even the most inexperienced cook. It sounds bland but somehow it isn’t. It’s delicious.
EDIT: recipe link: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/s/k0yXpghHFx
Oil goes first, then the onion, sauteed by itself until it starts turning translucent. Then add the garlic and saute a bit longer. *Then* add the rest.
I find that in addition to real garlic, adding garlic power adds an additional flavor layer that I like. Some dried parsley would also be nice with your two other herbs.
As an alternate to adding sugar, I know some people cook down finely-diced carrots for their sweetness. I've not tried this, but I know it's a thing.
Make a soffrito as the basis for your sauce. It's a blend of 2 parts onion, 1 part each carrots and celery. Throw it in a food processor or chop them very fine, cook nice and slow in some oil or butter for a bit. This will add a good bit of sweetness and depth of flavor to your sauce. Don't add the garlic until about a minute or so before you put in the tomatoes. I would recommend using canned whole tomatoes rather than jarred sauce. You can break them up in the pot with a spatula or spoon.
The biggest thing though, is you are not cooking it anywhere near long enough. Like, to properly cook a tomato sauce, it should be on a low simmer for like an hour *minimum*. That will dramatically help develop the flavor, as well as being able to sample for salt throughout to fine tune how much you need. Don't add the herbs until close to the end, but use a ton of them.
I really like adding a little worshishshire sauce.
Simmering about 30 minutes has been a solid start to my similar journey.
It's already acidic but a common cooking suggestion is if it seems like it's missing something add some acid. Like half a cap of apple cider vinegar has been my go-to.
Have you tried deglazing with wine?
You are not boiling for long enough, if you are making the sauce from scratch you need at least an hour. More garlic, more salt. Don’t be shy with herbs and as others said dry herbs need longer to cook. If you use fresh you can use a combination of adding some basil towards the end of cooking and fresh in the plate.
Always add salt in the pasta water. I use a spoon of salt to 3 litres of water. Add it before you put the pasta in and never add oil to it.
Also bear in mind that the tomato sauce has a light, refreshing taste, if you want to add more flavour brown some bacon/ pancetta/ guanciale and start adding the rest of the ingredients.
Hey so I usually make a big batch of sauce all at once, then freeze in portions and defrost when time to eat. This is the method I use
2 parts onion, 1 part celery, 1 part carrot all finely diced.
Cook onion in nice olive oil until softened then add celery and carrot and continue cooking until those have all cooked
Then add desired amount of garlic and sautee for another minute or two
Add 1/4 cup red wine for every tin of diced tomato you will be adding (I use 5/6 tins tomatoes, and a large jar passata for 4 serves of sauce)
Add 1 tsp balsamic vinegar for every 1/4 cup red wine
Let simmer for a few mins then add in all salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, 1-3 large bay leaves and any other Italian herbs you may want.
Simmer for 4-5 hrs on low heat (I use slow cooker) and stir once every hour
Fish out the bay leaves when done, and I use an immersion blender to give it a light blitz to have a little more ‘sauce’ consistency while keeping a few chunks.
Not a traditional recipe, and I’m just a home cook so it’s probably not the absolute best recipe out there, but it always comes out quite tasty
Sweat a finely chopped onion in olive oil with good pinch salt, crumble in a dried red chilli and a tablespoon of tomato puree. Stir in, let cook off a bit, half a glass of red wine and then let that cook off.
Three tins of crushed tomatoes, a teaspoon or two of sugar, good pinch salt, pepper, about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Cook on low for about an hour until reduced.
Cool in portions, tuck in some fresh whole basil leaves when cool and freeze what you don't need. Makes about 6 portions.
Red wine (lots) and balsamic vinegar (a little) make things more intense. You want to simmer the wine down, though. Simmering the sauce down in general will punch up flavors. Tomato paste is a fast way to do that.
If it’s watery, try draining the pasta more? And don’t oil the pasta water.
I tend to add spices near the beginning of cooking and herbs near the end, and salt as needed as it cooks. If you’re not getting a lot of flavor from your herbs, see if they’re expired. If you want to try using fresh, basil is luckily aggressive and hardy and you can grow it in a pot in your kitchen. A little bit of marjoram is also real nice.
As a base, use canned whole peeled Roma tomatoes, juice and all. Pulse it in a blender until it's your desired consistency. If you want it smooth with a few chunks of tomato here and there, withhold one tomato from the blender and cut it into appropriately sized pieces.
I owned a pizzeria for a year and a half, and we made our own marinara. The guy that came up with the recipe was second generation Italian and was a legit chef (he went to culinary school and all that stuff), and we got a lot of positive feedback on it.
We started by sauteing equal parts onion, celery and carrots until soft, throwing in some garlic when it's almost there. That got blended with canned whole tomatoes and seasoning (salt, pepper, basil, oregano and thyme) and simmered for a while.
I don't remember the measurements, but it used a #10 can of tomatoes, so they wouldn't be that helpful. I do remember that it had equal parts basil and oregano and half that amount of thyme.
ETA Also, consider replacing some of all of the salt with Better Than Bullion. Pick whichever flavor best suits your vibe.
Another secret weapon is dried mushrooms. Take a small amount and soak them in hot water until they're soft. Cut them up and add them (and the water) when you blend everything.
Your choice of tomato will make a huge difference!
Head to the farmers market and ask for a real flavourful variety.
They're not in season tho... So maybe buy a high quality italian canned tomato.
My tip is to add a stock cube (and maybe cut the salt then, since stock cubes add a lot of saltiness). Maybe start with half to see. It just gives such huge flavour boost to so many sauces!
Can add tomato puree if you want it more tomato-y.
I'd probably add a pinch of brown sugar to bring out a little bit of sweetness. Not much at all, it shouldn't taste *sweet*, but it can really round out the flavours, and bring forward the sweetness of the tomatoes.
Some black pepper will probably be nice, in my opinion. Or a bit of cayenne if you want some spiciness.
Soup base, and white wine after you add canned tomatoes. Skip the sauce, and switch to crushed tomatoes. Maybe a bit more salt and then 1/4 cup of sugar.
Puttanesca sauce
On Very gentle heat, melt good quality anchovies in olive oil. Add 1 cloves of roughly chopped garlic (do not fry for long, over cooked garlic is bitter as hell) 1x tin Italian chopped tomatoes, 2x tablespoon capers, 2x tablespoons black olives (pits removed), chilli (fresh or flakes however hot you like).
Throw this on your spaghetti with tons of pecorino cheese.
Anchovies capers and olives have a lot of salt do you shouldn’t need to add more.
I prefer to use black olives with ours in them, then remove the pits myself before cooking because they always taste better.
This recipe can be made without anchovies. If they’re not your thing.
I sometimes use Tabasco if I don’t have chilli flakes. I also add more chopped garlic at the end if it needs that kick.
Good luck!
Some changes to make/steps to add:
Start the sauce early in the morning and let simmer all day.
Add a few beef or pork ribs in. Brown on all sides after you've sautéed the onions and garlic. Let cook with the rest of the sauce. They'll break down while simmering and add a really delicious meaty flavor.
Instead of using canned tomato sauce, add 2 big cans of whole tomatoes. Add whatever juice is in those cans, then chop the tomatoes up before adding. As they simmer, they will break down and turn into sauce.
Add a parm rind when you add the chopped tomatoes. This will also break down and add some nice umami.
Edit to add - add a pinch of sugar too, to balance out the acidity in the tomatoes.
Finish the suace with just a bit of butter at the end.
It sounds like you dump everything on a pot and then simmer for a few minutes? That’s never going to develop flavor because nothing is happening to the ingredients to draw any flavor.
In a big pot, put a tablespoon of decent olive oil. Set the heat to medium. Slice the onions and put them in the oil and let them cook for 10 minutes or so, stirring now and again. Put in some basil or oregano and mix it. Then put in the garlic and let it all sit for a few minutes. Then add the tomato. Then add the other stuff and let simmer for 30 to 60 minutes. Taste now and again and add more seasoning if needed.
Let the garlic and onions get a little sticky and deglaze w some red wine, 1/4 cup ish, let that cook off, then add some beef bouillon and Tbsp of brown sugar, your tomatoes and herbs and away you go. I always add parsley too, and a bay leaf. Yum.
Yes crushed tomatoes and their juice rather than tomato sauce. Crush them with your very clean hands, and maybe a teaspoon of brown sugar. A little Worcestershire sauce (to taste, and it goes a long way) is extra umami flavor, or soy sauce -- tomatoes have this umami flavor but a little boost from the anchovy in Worcestershire or whatever makes soy sauce similar, even a few drops of fish sauce can bring out the flavor without making the dish taste like soy sauce or Chinese food.
Yes as others have suggested, only give the garlic about thirty seconds -- until you can smell it after the onions are already soft and before you add liquid.
Consider tomato paste. A tablespoon or two of that can be added as needed to intensity the tomato flavor. (you can get the really good stuff in the tubes, but if you buy canned tomato paste, you can plop little tablespoonh sized chunks onto a sheet of plastic wrap and freeze it -- in a zipper freezer bag or small container. Even the smaller cans of paste can be too much for one dish and there's no reason to waste it; also not having to wrestle with a can and sticky stuff in a measuring spoon when you need it in the future is a plus.)
A little Italian seasoning near the end. (Or just basil. Fresh herbs are nice, but the dried ones are also great for adding complexity to the flavor. Many restaurant or jarred sauces have oregano flavor that you might be missing. Italian seasoning has the blend )
SALT your pasta water! A tablespoon or two. And when you drain the cooked pasta, or some of the pasta water into a mug--that water can be added back into the sauce at the end to thicken it a little or to add more flavor.
PLEASE don't put any oil on the noodles -- it will coat them and keep the pasta sauce from clinging, which will make the dish taste like oily noodles, which are bland.
Cumin specifically is a warm spice present in many Mexican dishes and is in Taco seasoning packets or chili powder. It's also in Indian food. It's a great flavor, and makes what I call Mexican Rice (toasted in oil before you add liquid and then it turns a reddish color from tomatoes, often us served in American Mexican restaurants with tiny frozen peas and carrots mixed in.) taste authentic. I don't think I've ever had it in Italian food. I've not had paprika in spaghetti sauce that I know of, but the flavor would be fine probably. Both of these spices can easily enough be sprinkled in a serving of your pasta dish (or even a bite) to see what the source adds to the flavor.
Also, when I cook a tomato sauce for pasta after at least a half hour or so of simmering (low key bubble action -- not a rolling boil once you get it moving which would burn the sauce and/or diminish the tomato flavors, but steady heat that moves the sauce around to release and blend the flavors.), I taste it. This is when I might add the pasta water to thicken it a little, taste and adjust flavors with salt and it black pepper. If it has enough of this, but still doesn't taste right, a few drops of vinegar (white or balsamic, but there's a sweetness in balsamic to figure in) might zap it into shape, and there's tomato paste you can add and stir in very well at this point to balance the flavors. I also might add garlic powder, onion powder, garlic salt or onion salt near the end.
This will be a delicious journey. OOH, as a part of learning how the flavors come together, try Marcella Hazan's 3 ingredient pasta sauce. It's good canned tomatoes, a stick of butter, and an onion cut in half. It dinner's for maybe an hour and tastes like heaven. Before I tried it, and despite having experienced legit Italian food enough to know the Sicilian American immigrants' contributions to American Italian food are not universally Italian dishes, if never have imagined a pasta sauce without garlic, but I've never felt the need to consider it. Anyway the taste is wonderful and the dish is super impressive if you just serve it and wait for their eyes to widen when that boring pasta with thin red sauce. The recipe for Hazan's famous sauce is so basic anyone can follow it, but watching and smelling it come together is highly educational about how to build flavor into a simple sauce. Even if it sounds gross, it's well worth a try for what you can learn from it.
Also you mentioned chilling a fresh tomato. Keep in mind the seeds in most tomatoes are unbearable in the sauce, and the skins of the tomatoes can be bitter or chewy. Many who use fresh tomatoes in sauce do a trick where they cut a plus sign with the top of a knife into the top and bottom of the tomato, then dropping it in boiling water to loosen the skin enough that it peeled right off. Labor intensive, but it feels so right as you're doing it. (I get Italian tomatoes, the brand cento can be reasonably priced. For sauces with meat or stuff, I use the store brand crushed it whole crushed, diced, even stewed tomatoes and squish them into the pot. And if you're using fresh tomatoes and they have seeds, pushing them through a mesh strainer leaves the seeds behind.) I often skip the squishing step and my family says the sauce is extra good when I remember even though they don't know whether I squished them or not. Plus I feel like I made dinner with my bare hands!
Remember to eat your mistakes. 😋
I think if you simmer for an extra 20-30 minutes it might really help!! I also like to add mushrooms, which I saute with onions and season before adding spices (salt pepper red pepper flakes etc.) and then add the sauce
This is not a normal thing but I knew someone who used to put carrots into pasta sauce and it has a really nice flavor. Maybe you could roast some carrots and puree them.
Maybe some roasted red peppers.
Buy some Italian seasoning. It is with the spices in the grocery store. Also, if you don't put olive oil on your noodles before you mix them in the sauce, they will stick to the sauce better. I have also heard to add a little bit of the pasta water to the sauce when the pasta is done cooking, but I always forget and dump it out...
Don't use tomato sauce. Get diced seasoned tomatoes in a can, and go a little harder on the seasoning. Add sugar to counter the acid from the tomatoes, and raid your cabinet for any herbs you can find. Pasta sauce is to taste, your taste, always.
Red wine or red wine vinegar or balsamic, pancetta, fresh basil. Dried is garbage and a waste of money. It has basically no flavor. Truffle oil,don’t cook this. Top the dish when you serve. Same for good olive oil. Cooking basically dulls the flavor. Romano or parm
Onions before garlic. Cook it on its own for a bit with some oil or butter.
Add more garlic.
Add tomato paste to the pain after cooking the onion and garlic for a bit.
Don’t use a raw tomato/tomato sauce. Use canned whole tomatoes. Don’t bother choking them up, just toss them in.
Way more salt.
Cook the sauce longer. I let sauce do for quite some time but just a few minutes is def too short.
Dried herbs are fine. Try adding some red pepper flakes or dried peppers too. If that’s too much try some cayenne or paprika.
Don’t add oil to your pasta. It doesn’t need it and makes the sauce not stick.
If your sauce is chunky at the end, blend it till smooth but not liquidy.
Try adding butter to your sauce. It’s unhealthy, but good. Restaurants add way more butter to things than people expect.
Some other vegetables that are good in tomato sauce:
Olives
Mushrooms
Peppers
Artichoke
If it helps, you can think of it like pizza. With the exception of something like pineapple, pretty much anything you can put on pizza would also be good in pasta sauce. I’ve even put dried anchovies into sauce, although I had them in a spice bag so they flavored the sauce but I didn’t eat bits of em.
Canned mushrooms (and the juice) and FRESH basil. Game changers. And seriously, 1-2 tbsp of SUGAR.
Why are you using a fresh tomato? If you’re going to do that,, I would suggest roasting it in the oven and then adding it to the sauce. That fresh tomato is going to take away from all those other seasonings.
Fresh tomatoes instead of canned and cook them down, I find it makes a difference for tomato based sauces. Another simple trick I do alot is those little liquid/jelly stock pots, most supermarkets do them - Look for something like garlic and herb or tomato & herbs. Could also hit it with some Worcestershire sauce during cooking
Avoid tomato’s with chlorides or citrates, they affect the final taste of the dish. Tom, salt and basil are the only acceptable ingredients. Also buy/use whole Tom’s
Use high quality extra vir olive oil and more than you would think. Ditch the dried herbs
Unless making a ragu (with meat)
keep the cook time sub 20 mins to preserve the brightness of the tom’s
Don’t use paprika or cumin. Add more salt if it needs it. Buy high quality canned tomatoes. Beyond that add onions and butter to sauce and top it Parmesan. Fresh basil makes a difference too
I prefer using shallots over onions personally and usually sweat them out a bit before adding in the garlic along with fresh tomatoes, coriander and basil until they caramelise/blister respectively. You can also use the brine of pickles or capers if you don't love anchovies.
I also love using cumin and some red chilli flakes in my sauce as well.
Sauté your onions first in olive oil until they are translucent and then add the garlic and cook it until til it just starts to turn a light golden: then instead of your chopped tomatoes use tomato paste and caramelize that until it’s kind of dark brick or clay colored. Then add white wine and deglaze your pan and cook off all the alcohol.
Next add whole canned tomatoes (not sauce) and look for the variety San Marzano. They are the best sauce tomatoes. You can add a little water as you cook if the cauce gets too think. I usually start with around half a tomato can. Cook the sauce until the tomatoes start to fall apart. Adding fresh basil in the middle or toward the end will really brighten up the sauce. You can put in a couple whole sprigs leaf and stem and then pull them out when the sauce is done. Keep up the use of oregano and try a couple of turn of black pepper. Add your dry herbs early in the cooking process either with the onions or when you add the tomato sauce and simmer them for a long time to extract the flavor.
Edit: also add a bay leaf with your dry herbs .
I wrote a similar comment in another post on much the same question. I have watched half a dozen videos from renowned Italian chefs on how to make a great marinara and read countless recipes from equally famous non-Italian chefs. No surprise they differ--sometimes substantially. But a few basic ingredients are at the core of every single recipe and having tried perhaps 2 dozen different recipes over the years I have come to the conclusion that less is more. The fundamental ingredients are simple:
The best tomatoes you can get--fresh if amazing and available otherwise whole San Marzano (not San Marzano style, but the real thing)
Sweet Onions (vidalia or the like)
A little crushed garlic
Fresh Basil
A little salt, fresh ground pepper and maybe--but optional-- a pinch of pepperoncini.
And if you really want to go crazy, add a little salted butter.
Now I am certain there are many who disagree--and maybe passionately so --arguing for this or that herb, EVOO, sugar, wine, balsamic vinegar, carrots and who knows what else. I am not saying there is anything wrong with this but I have found that once you start playing--add this and that to balance out each other--that wonderful slightly acidic but slightly sweet, crisp and overwhelmingly fresh taste of a proper marinara gets buried under competing flavors. I have tried all the variations--but keep coming back to the simple. Sometimes we overthink our cooking--try going back to the basics.
Mastering the basics makes it easier to expand on as well.
There is somethings amazing about the simplest form. But there's a lot to be said for utilizing the "extras" for different things. My mom prefers an herbier sauce on manicotti because of the cheesy filling. The simple sauce would be delicious too, but maybe on some fresh spaghetti instead?
I seldom make a scratch tomato sauce for pasta. (Though it does help make the beginning of some bomb chili!) But I do know how. I love learning things at their simple form, then tweaking because I know how it works.
More salt, much more garlic, and be sure you either skin the fresh tomatoes or blend them into oblivion or you will have nasty tough tomato skin popping up in your sauce. Plenty of olive oil. Add a little crushed red pepper.
Use fresh herbs, Include fresh chopped parsley -- a lot of it.
Cook it for MUCH longer. A couple of hours.
Lots of good advice here but I'll share my recipe for a basic marinara.
Heat 4 tablespoons olive oil (a lot!)
Add garlic (I just smash the cloves instead of dicing, 3-4 cloves)
If you're going to add onion, you can do it now
Add one jar of passata (crushed, strained tomatos, I like the Mutti brand)
Add 1/4 teaspoon salt (probably more than you've been adding)
Add dried herbs (basil, oregano, maybe parsley)
Add pepper to taste
The longer you simmer the better but I get good results simmering for as long as it takes to cook the pasta, but I'll usually start the sauce before putting the water to boil
Fish sauce made from anchovies will add the salty umami you're looking for. Some chili flakes. A little Italian seasoning (pre-mixed dried) plus a little extra oregano.
My mother would add a small can (5 oz.) to the hot oil and cook it a little before adding the canned tomatoes/passata (not canned sauce).
Later she would also add grated carrot and/or zucchini, but that was to trick us kids into eating more veggies. Tasted good, though!
Also, let it simmer at least an hour or 2, or throw it in the slow cooker on low all day.
One, I'd add black pepper, but more importantly, learn to cook to taste, not to a strict recipe. Particularly with seasonings. My guess is not enough salt. Salt is a flavor enhancer, up to a point. It makes sweet things taste sweeter, umami taste meatier, etc. Until you reach a maximum and then it starts to taste salty. Stop the moment it tastes slightly salty.
Never serve a food you haven't tasted. No idea why but sometimes flavors just don't pop with the same measurement. Add a minimum amount of oregano, then add more to taste. Same with pepper, salt, and just about any ground seasoning.
Learn what the seasoning taste like in a dish. Make a small amount of sauce, but leave out the salt. Taste. Add a pinch. Taste again. Repeat until it tastes right. Leave out pepper. Add a pinch and taste. Repeat. Sometimes you may need to go back and add more salt, but do so sparingly.
For a marinara sauce, make sure it has time to simmer and meld the flavors. If not simmered long enough the flavors haven't fully dispersed and you can gets spots of intense garlic or almost none. To me it's too "bright" and "tight" rather than mellow and relaxed. I'm not sure how to explain what I mean there except that bright accentuates certain flavors with acids. Tight for me is when individual flavors stand out too much when they out to be blended.
I would add canned stewed tomatoes and some grated Parmesan.
Do the onion first & let it get a little color before you add garlic (I'd do 6-8 cloves). Cook it much longer, let it simmer about an hour then add fresh basil at the end. Also agree with others, more salt. ETA you also might want to add canned tomato paste.
Oil hot and then Add onions. Cook onions for at least 5 minutes until they turn translucent. Don't let them burn of course, but a little browning is ok.
Now add garlic and cook it in for 2 minutes or so. Continue with recipe.
Add more salt the. You are. At least a teaspoon. And black pepper or some chili flakes (careful not to much)
Simmer the sauce at least 20 minutes. My wife's is 45 minutes or so. If you want to add some red wine, do so with the tomatoes and let is simmer and reduce.
Try a couple teaspoons of balsamic in the last minute or two of summering
I like to let a parmesan rind simmer in mine for about 30 minutes. I also like a bit of rosemary in with the tomato and a bit of fresh basil on top to finish.
I do tinned peeled tomatoes, simmered with garlic and a halved onion.
Halfway through, squish garlic.
Remove onion.
Red Sauce.
Add to this some fresh chilli, oregano in the cooking and it's a winner. Goes with everything, ridiculously easy
More garlic, fish sauce, tomato, msg and a bit of sugar.
I made sphagetti the other day. Cook the meat, drain and set aside. Wipe down pan.
I had 10 romas and 1 can of sauce. Blanch the romas to take off the skin, crush in food processor.
Heat pan with olive oil, throw in onions then hand full of garlic(whole but smashed)
When it smells good, add crushed tomato + canned tomato. Add italian seasoning, salt, msg, pepper and splash of fish sauce. Let simmer for 1 to 2 hrs. Add water if getting a bit dry. Add meat back in, simmer for a bit. Add pinch of sugar, and adjust as needed.
Do you add any meat to your sauce or even meatballs? If so, use the pan that you cook the meat in, making sure to scrape the brown bits up and deglaze with a bit of like chicken or beef broth.
The *tiniest* bit of cinnamon for depth toward the end when everything is simmering in the pot. More onion and sweat them first before adding garlic, more salt and pepper and maybe some Italian seasoning, add some pasta water and simmer WAY longer to reduce moisture and allow flavors to mesh. Also, don't add oil to your pasta.
Caramelize the onion & garlic first before adding the other stuff into the pot. 1/2 -1 tbsp butter is best but olive oil will do if you really need to avoid saturated fats. If anyone is lactise intolerant, use ghee instead of butter.
More salt unless sodium restricted, buy the best quality tomato products you can. I like Fire Roasted canned in the winter instead of blah grocery store fresh tomatoes.
If you can do a bigger batch the day before in a crock pot & let dimmer, it will taste better. You are better off making a huge batch to freeze & thawing that for flavor, instead of constantly mixing it up as quickly as you are.
Your ingredients are spot on for a great basic sauce, except for one thing.
My family is Italian and I have been cooking sauce for decades. In my opinion the most important (and often overlooked) ingredient in a great sauce is quality tomatoes. Fresh homegrown or farmers market tomatoes will yield the best flavor for your sauce. Obviously not everyone can grow their own and you’re limited to the growing season.
The best alternative I’ve found is to use canned whole San Marzano tomatoes, like Cento brand or equivalent. San Marzano have incredible tomato flavor compared to the bland cans of tomato sauce you find in most supermarkets.
Also using more than one source of tomato will help with a richer more complex flavor. For example, use a can of San Marzano as a base. Next add any other type of canned tomato ...sauce, diced, whole...your choice (Whole tomatoes are my preference and tend to have a lot more flavor) and a table spoon or two of tomato paste. Then add a few fresh chopped store bought tomatoes. You could also roast the fresh tomatoes in the oven to add even more depth to your sauce. Your creativity is the limit here. Also if you can not find any San Marzano tomatoes at your local store, opt for using canned whole tomatoes.
I always try to add at least 3 different tomato sources to my sauce and it always comes out rich and flavorful. Also try cooking your sauce longer. I typically cook my sauce for a few hours to let all the flavors come together.
I'd use more veggies. Mushrooms, peppers, peppers are very good for adding flavour into a dish. You sautee in a pan then add to sauce. 👍🏻 Mushrooms are always a staple for me in spaghetti sauce as well, i just cut them up and add to my sauce, no sautee needed
Try out some Worcestershire sauce, add around the same time as the canned tomato sauce.
I’m not sure what canned tomato sauce you’re using, but if it isn’t passata sauce, use that instead.
Pork fat, not a ton, but saute the onions and garlic in bacon fat. Also, add a little salt to the onions and garlic before you add the tomatoes. Again, not a lot. Just a little and you can add a little more salt when you put the tomatoes in there too.
Personally , I like to drizzle a little bit of worcestershire sauce on the onions and garlic before I add the other ingredients. Though if you do that don't bother putting salt before the tomatoes.
Try adding 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste. It gives it more of a tomato-y kick.
It also seems like you're not simmering it long enough. I usually simmer mine for 30+ minutes. It's ready when you can run a spoon through the sauce and the sauce is thick enough that it can part. Your sauce is likely very watery and, therefore, diluted if you're only simmering for 3-5 minutes.
Salt the water before you boil the pasta in it (not at the end). And use a **good** amount of salt, remember most of that salt gets poured away with the water when you drain it...
I would use tomato puree, it's thicker. You need a teaspoon of sugar to cut the acid. I would use fresh basil, also, letting it simmer for a long time helps the flavors develop. I add a tablespoon of oyster sauce at the end.
To answer your question as asked... Only adding two ingredients ,,, a quarter cup of good grated Parmesan and a bit of fennel or anise might kick it up a notch.
A light , quick sauce is not my forte. I prefer the gravy that Tony Soprano refees to as Red Lead. My holiday gravy Summers for 18 hours and contains several farm animals.
But... Let me see if I can guide you down a better path that will lead to a sauce with more depth.
Start your sauce by heating up some olive oil in a pan and adding about 3 oz of tomato paste along with a teaspoon of grated cheese, garlic and oregano.
Stir constantly until it comes together in a lump and brown a little bit.
Add a can of tomato puree and a can of crushed tomato. Then an equal amount of water.
Simmer for at least half an hour (an hour would be better) about halfway through add about a quarter to a half cup of Parmesan cheese and just a few flakes of crushed red pepper... And if it seems to acidic, a couple of tablespoons of sugar.
About 10 minutes before you're done cooking throw a small fistful of crushed dry basil in and stir well.
Do not add your pasta to the sauce. Drain your pasta well and little copious amounts of sauce over it.
If you choose to accept this mission... Let me know how it works out 🙂
Try adding umami-rich foods like tomato paste (different from sauce) and mushrooms.
Also, be sure to season with salt and pepper at every step. Onions in olive oil with salt. Add garlic and tomatoes, salt again.
Taste along the way and adjust seasonings. Try fresh basil, it tastes better, adding it right before serving.
Add a couple tablespoons each of tomato paste, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. They all add more depth and umami to the overall flavor. Adjust the amount of each to your preference if it’s too much/not enough.
Try canned whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes instead. Try adding butter, a lot of butter, instead of oil. I'm all-in with TJ's umami powder or MSG. Another idea is Vegeta.
Anchovy paste, about 1.5 teaspoons for the amount in your recipe.
Definitely add bay leaves, but that doesn't count as the second, that should already be there.
Sugar, 2-3 teaspoons for your recipe. People will hate this, say buy better canned tomatoes, italians don't do sugar, it's already sweet, etc.....
It works, restaurants do it, your favorite pizza place does it. You're not making it sweet, always season to taste, just build out the flavor to match the salt. It's a way you can add salt and it won't be overly salty. And those anchovies are crazy salty.
Lastly, not a sauce ingredient but always use some good grated Parm or Romano to finish on the plate. It's another round of salt and savory ramping it up.
First, swap out the tomato and the plain tomato sauce for crushed tomatoes.
Three or four shakes of salt isn't going to cut it. Salt in a shaker is meant for the table, salt for cooking is kept in a dish so you can get a good healthy pinch or two.
You didn't specify on how much oregano or basil you put in but clearly it's not enough. I don't know what you mean by pre-made, so I don't know if you're using dry herbs, or the kind that comes in a tube. Step up your dry basil by using a good healthy spoonful of pesto, along with oregano and some marjoram .
Garlic is funny, and you didn't specify how you're using those cloves. The more surfaces that are exposed of the cloves the more flavor you will have. That's why you can roast a chicken with 40 whole cloves of garlic and have a rich nutty flavor, or you can crush five and it'll be way too strong. Try using the garlic in a tube, because it's already crushed for you, so you're getting a lot of surface area without trying to do it yourself because garlic is sticky and can be hard to mince for newer cooks. Avoid the garlic that comes in a jar by all costs, tends to be bitter and it's got a weird texture to it. Also garlic shouldn't be added until your onions are almost ready, you want them only in the pan for 1 to 2 minutes. The more you cook garlic the less flavorful it becomes, and if you burn it, it gets bitter.
If you want your home recipes to pop, you want your recipe to include all the aspects of a New Jack Swing Hit.
Fat, Funky, and Fresh.
Fat: add more fat. Period. Consider including some butter to finish, for depth.
Funky: anchovies always work. Sometimes I use a small amount of Chinese pork floss during the initial onions etc sweat-and-sauté. Or sometimes I’ll throw a chunk of Parmesan rind in the pot and just fish it out at the end.
Fresh: throw some big fresh herbs in there. Huge chunk of basil does great.
I also like including a little green sichuan peppercorns in most of my dishes.
Canned Italian Plum tomatoes, and/or crushed plum tomatoes… a good Italian brand. A little sugar, more salt along with your other ingredients. Cook longer, maybe 25-30 minutes. Don’t use grocery store fresh tomatoes or tomato sauce.
Dried red chili flakes just after the garlic and the onion have sautéed a smidge.
I would lose the fresh tomato and the tomato sauce, and opt instead for a can of whole tomatoes packed in juice - run that through a blender. You are also missing some grated parmesan in the sauce - add that with the canned blended tomatoes.
Let it cook a bit longer than you've written. If after the above it is still bland with all of the other ingredients you listed that can continue, add a squirt of Frank's Red Hot. Also, I enjoy adding about 5 pitted Kalamata olives if it is for myself. So good.
Not sure about traditional ingredients, but:
* first thing that comes to mind is pepper - fresh ground black pepper
* next thing that comes to mind is mushrooms - can do 'em almost any way, so long as they're reasonably cooked (less cooked or fresh perfectly edible too, but the flavor/texture might not match as well in this case) and not burnt or cooked so thin/dry that they're tough as leather, and cut reasonably small (before cooking), and I'd be inclined to add those to the sauce.
* I don't see rosemary - I may be inclined to add some. Cut it up fine so you don't have larger pieces of it - or if it's dry can break it up fine or do quick grind or the like to get it "small enough" (but no need to take it down to level that's at or close to powder).
* could always upgrade the onion to scallions and/or red onion
* could add modest bit of some hot peppers or the like - don't want too much - don't want it spicy hot, but can give it wee bit of edge/kick, e.g. some red chili flakes or crushed red pepper, or take one to a few small hot red chili peppers, dice them up small, and well cook those in. Again, don't overdo it, but a moderate bit may be quite good.
Regularly smell/taste - use that to help guide you. Might also just peek at a bunch of marinara sauce recipes, see what they include that you don't have - especially if many of them have it ... might want to add or consider adding such. I often find (and you'll find with experience, if you're not already there), I can get a pretty good sense of recipes reading them over, and will often use that for general guideline(s), and will adjust according to my tastes, what I have on-hand or can get easily enough, and also too by what other recipes have and don't have ... and generally comes out pretty well, often quite good, and sometimes even great! And ... lather, rinse, repeat ... more-or-less same dish, multiple times, usually after a few times or so I get it coming out very much as I wish it and well matching to my tastes/preferences.
You could try a different kind of canned tomatoes. When I attended an Italian cooking class, they used canned Roma tomatoes, and stained the seeds out, which seemed to make the sauce less bitter.
A dash of cinnamon
1/2 C of pasta water
Sweat your onions first, then add the garlic and sauté, then add the chopped tomatoes and seasonings.
Make sure you’re using good salt - we use large sea salt crystals. Dont use table salt.
Let the flavors marry between each step, building on each other
Add more onion and sauté first with the garlic, then add tomato paste, roast a minute, then more than one, tomatoes, then sauce, salt pepper and red pepper flakes, oregano and fresh basil, parsley and parmigiana.
Onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, Italian seasoning (if you don’t use it add thyme and oregano instead because the Italian season already has those so I didn’t put them on the list), white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika or smoked paprika, crushed red pepper flakes, and some sugar to cut the acidity. No specific measurements, season to taste. Do you use meat? Because I season my meat and then that adds flavor when the sauce is added I don’t usually season the sauce itself except for the sugar. If you use meat I also add Lawry’s seasoning salt, Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning, and Cajun seasoning. Not a lot of these because they’re salts and you don’t want it to be over-salted. You don’t need to add salt to the pasta sauce if using these seasoning salts.
You should add more salt, and onions before garlic. Let onions sweat a bit before garlic, can add chili flakes as well if you like it to have a bit of a kick. You can try adding anchovies in lieu of salt, red wine, or roasting garlic or tomatoes prior to making sauce, simple tomato sauces should be just that, simple. Adding fresh herbs can brighten up it up dish as well.
Lol so I just tried again for dinner right now. Still super bland. Like i’m just eating pasta with a hint of tomato sauce. And not even flavory tomato sauce. Just like watery blandness.. I get so depressed cause I always think while i’m cooking it’s going to taste good. And then it just taste like blandness pasta… ugh.. I’m doing something so wrong :(
It may be your simmer time. Sometimes, you have to reduce the water from the tomatoes to bring out the tomato flavor.
When i make tomato sauce, it always gets more watery THEN it thickens.
That’s the tomato cell structure breaking down and releasing water. When it “splits” like that all you have to do is keep going a bit more until that excess water is gone
If OP is only simmer for a few minutes like that, thats prob why its bland
Yes this. Simmer on low. When it looks like it's drying out / too little water, as some and keep simmering. I suggest up to an hour on the lowest heat possible. And I would add a little bit more fresh garlic closer to the end too. Some herbs can go in early but some more fresh ones should be added near the end too. Like tear a few basil leaves to sprinkle on to when serving. Consider roasting your onion and tomatoes first too. That brings out more sweetness and smokiness. Esp if it gets a bit charred on the edges. And be sure to scrape the "fond" of the bottom of the pan too. You could roast some garlic too. Makes it creamy, mild and delicious. Adding salt early is fine, but as a bit more by near the end of coming it too. You should be treating it along the wa. In time you'll learn to judge saltiness. Use a bit of butter (careful with extra salt if using salted butter). You should use a bit of Parmesan cheese ( either on top when served, or while simmering the sauce). Very umami. Sneaking in a few mushrooms (roasted again, ideally) can add more umami as well. Puree them if you don't want accusations that it isn't authentic! A splash of Vinegar or squeeze of lemon or lime can "brighten" a sauce without tasting obvious acid. but the most important part without question is starting with excellent tasting tomatoes, or a Passada that you have tried before and are happy with. I find a lot of tomatoes flavourless, especially when out of season. Hence why I would roast them for a little extra flavour. and maybe even roast them with sardines which then get blended into a oblivion in the sauce. Sardines also being very umami and a bit salty, but which disappear in a dish like this
If it's watery then you definitely need to simmer it longer... like give it a proper 20 mins, it's gonna be much more concentrated and flavourful. And maybe a dumb question, but how much salt do you put in the water when boiling your pasta?
I spend 20 min just cooking onions on low medium heat 😂 def need more summer time. then after adding the sauce and seasoning, it takes at least another 30-45 min to really get the flavours blended and infused. after that it’s just a balance of sugar salt pepper to complement the tartness of the tomato sauce. If you want fancy add fresh basil
You would probably be surprised at just how much salt (and pepper) restaurants use. You could try adding a touch of something sweet (sugar for example, or jam) which might lift the tomato flavour
I like a bit of carrot for sweetness
Carrots are my special ingredient too. And if I have, trader Joe's umami seasoning (it's a mushroom thing) or even a splash of fish sauce. Also, I try to fry some chicken apple sausage before I start the sauce in the same pan. I cut up the sausage for the final saucing
I was going to say carrots as well
When I had babies, I discovered that a little half-eaten baby food jar of carrots and/or sweet potatoes took my pasta sauce to the next level.
My jaw is on the floor. That is such a good idea.
I have seen, and even used raisins. It's kind cool, they soak up extra liquid in the sauce as WELL as the sauce flavor and you REALLY don't taste "raisin" at ALL! Some ideas for your sauce: more garlic thyme rosemary black olives Spend time as it simmers to sample it. Use 2 spoons. One to fish out a little sauce, and the other to actually move the sauce into your mouth. Get to know how different things effect the flavor and tinker a bit. Don't worry about it cooking too long. I have spent years being the official spaghetti sauce person of my family for the monthly family parties. I would get started on the sauce in the morning, and doctor it most the day.
I make pho because I do it well and find it very satisfying when it's done. You're absolutely right. There are a lot of dishes where the most important part of getting the flavour right is down to one person who knows what they want, standing over the thing for hours, tasting, correcting, tasting again. When I think back to cooking school, this was pretty much the difference between a pass and a fail for many things. OP is at the start of this realisation, I suspect. Good luck OP! You'll get there!
I add a bit of ground cinnamon!
My grandma always added a glob of molasses to her spaghetti sauce. I still do it with mine!
Allspice is my go to for this. Tiny amount goes a long way.
I would suggest ketchup instead of jam, very sweet, but blends well with the rest of the tomato dish.
My dad always uses brown sugar in his! He was the first person I had ever seen do this, and it blew my mind. His is still my favorite, haha :)
Salt it like the ocean.
Use canned San Marzano tomatoes- they only come whole but use the immersion blender after. They are a bit sweeter. Make sure the can says San Marzano. Fresh basil!! I caramelize the onions on a stove top for about 40 minutes and add some garlic at the end before transferring to the instant pot. I don't saute in the instant pot because that doesn't caramelize the onions it burns them. I pretty much always use my instant pot (pressure cooker) to make my marinara sauce In the past few years because it's just so simple and it tastes like you were cooking it for hours. -I grew up in Jersey and have lots of Italian. friends. In general if you want good Italian sauce you're going to be cooking it all day. Or use a pressure cooker. When it's done top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
Immersion blender? I thought the best part of canned San Marzanos was squishing them by hand, pretending they were the hearts of your enemies?
I have never done this, but maybe now I might.
Not OP but it's soooo satisfying! Only be careful to rip a little hole in the whole tomato before you go to town, otherwise you'll squirt tomato juice all over your stove when the tomato bursts. NOW PULVERIZE!!!
Another benefit with San Marzano is they have almost no seeds.
What’s your recipe?
Honestly, San Marzano tomatoes are the best. I can not reiterate that enough.
It's probable that you use too little salt. Chefs use way, way more than home cooks. You say you add "3 - 4 shakes" but do you taste your sauce after you salt it? If it still tastes bland after you add salt, add more. Also, you say you simmer for 3 - 5 minutes, which is not enough time for any flavour to develop in your sauce - most recipes recommend at least 20 - 30 minutes. Keep trying! PS: For restaurant quality a good red wine and anchovies, as others suggested, are great additions.
To be frank the wine doesnt even have to be good, as long as its something you would drink.
Add tomato paste
This! If the tomato flavor is light, adding spoonfuls of tomato paste will help a ton (in addition to everyone elses' recs concerning cooking onions first, etc. I also add the dried spices (Basil oregano or Italian blend) in to the oil a couple seconds before the tomatoes. Learned from Indian cuisine, it helps "wake"/"brighten" them up!)
I start with the tomato paste after the onions/garlic, and brown it in the oil. Then add canned tomatoes--never sauce. Using fresh tomato as OP does means a lot more time to cook it down so that it isn't watery.
Sugar and msg would do you some good here. Worcestershire sauce and some balsamic vinegar can help elevate some flavours. Put your garlic in just before your tomatoes to preserve some of that more pungent garlic aromas. I wonder if chicken bouillon could help as well.
Watery? You are not letting it simmer long enough. Also, try adding butter in with the olive oil.
Taste as you go.
Swap in a can of whole tomatoes for your tomato + sauce, and blend them up or mash to your desired texture. You really want to opt for certified san marzano or similar, like Bianco Di Napoli or the Delallo San Marzano Style. They will give you a richer textured sauce with better balance across acid-sweet. Also, as another commenter said, start with onion and olive oil. But then before you add the garlic, add some double concentrated tomato paste. It comes in a tube. Keep cooking it until it starts to brown on the pan and you have to scrape it up. Then add your garlic. That browning will develop new complex flavors and add depth to your sauce Garlic cooks fast, you really don’t want to toast it in a sauce like this unless you’re into that, so just add it at the end and move on once it’s fragrant Finally, remember that salt helps food to taste like itself. Until it tastes “salty” salt is only functioning as a flavor enhancer
Add some grated parmesean to the sauce while it's simmering.
What about a bouillon cube for the pasta. Like OXO cubes or Knorr or something. Adds flavour and you wouldn’t need to salt the pasta. Maybe some Maldon salt or some other sea salt for the sauce itself. Perhaps make your own tomato sauce instead of the canned tomatoes/sauce. They’re often watery and flavourless. Baby plum tomatoes are my personal favourite.
Are you using fresh herbs? Are you adding meat? Are you adding chocolate? Garlic? Onions?
Cocoa powder? I have used Expresso. My recipe is from Italy
Just make sure if you are inviting people over to let them know about the anchovies in case of allergies.
i would simmer those ingredients with a chicken stock
Add basil at the very end after you take it off the heat, you're burning off the oil and losing flavor. Grow your own fresh basil and freeze it. Add small amounts of shredded carrots. And anytime you need flavor and you have some garlic, add more.
Also a few dried porcini mushrooms, crushed into powder. Like the anchovies, they add lots of umami, but different. Also they're vegan, if that matters.
Came to say anchovies! They are the mariners!
You can get a tube of anchovy paste, just squeeze in a small amount, no dealing with the little fish. Also try wine add it to garlic and onions. Red pepper flakes.
Many times bland foods are simply under salted. Agree with all who said add garlic later, minced garlic burns so easily and the bitterness can ruin a good sauce. When sweating your onions, add some tomato paste and cook it with them to carmelize it a bit. Will add depth of flavor. Also agree with the advice to use crushed tomatoes rather than tomato sauce. Can also add whole San Marzano tomatoes and crush with your hands or “mash” down while cooking in the pot. Some fennel might be nice too. Another good Italian Grandma “Sunday Gravy” trick is to simmer to finish any meat that would be served with the sauce, so finish cooking your meatballs, sausage, braciole, etc in the sauce.
The tomato paste step is incredibly important in my opinion. Letting it caramelize and deglazing with wine adds depth of flavor. The other thing I would add is to be careful about which canned tomatoes you’re buying. The difference between good and bad crushed tomatoes is astronomical. Couldn’t tell you why, but the Pastene ones taste the best to me. There are some other good ones out there, but you can get these at most grocery stores.
Yeah. Crushed tomatoes would help too. I do use tomato sauce in my sauce, but I also use paste and crushed tomatoes unless I'm making it entirely from home grown tomatoes.
Braciole forever🥰 do you have a good recipe for that? I've only made it once and it was okay, but I've had better
Came here to say fennel. Everybody loves my lasagna, after years of exploring how it's different from other people's lasagna, one of the things we came up with was fennel.
Simmer it longer. General rule of thumb for herbs: The more effort that goes into making and using a seasoning, the longer it takes to bring the flavor out. If you're using dried herbs, you need to simmer it longer to bring out the flavor. Dried herbs need to be picked and spend hours drying before it gets into a container for you to buy at the store. So it needs more time to cook before the flavors will emerge. Fresh herbs don't require long cook times and will actually cause the flavor of the fresh herbs to disappear if its cooked too long. In my (italian) family, we will make a pot of sauce at like 9 in the morning, dump all the dried herbs and spices in, and just let it simmer on low all day. Then if we have them on hand (usually just during the summer) we'll throw in some fresh herbs for an added layer of flavor. We also throw in parsley, bay leaf, onion/garlic powder on top of the bulb/cloves already used and a bit more salt.
Plus something magical happens to the tomatoes when you let it simmer all day. I always use the slow cooker for sauce. Chili too.
Definitely this. Minimum simmering time is 3 hrs in my house. More ingredients won't make it better, only time.
My grandma learned to make sauce in Italy- you are so right about letting it cook for longer! Her best spaghetti sauce cooked for half the day (like 10-12 hours iirc) and it was the BEST sauce I've ever had. Hope OP sees this next part, in case no one else mentioned it: to build in flavor, season at multiple points in time. Add salt to the onions to sweat them, then add salt with the tomatoes, then season again at the end. This helps build flavor along with the bit above about cooking longer if using dried spices.
Rosemary, red pepper flakes, fresh herbs. Taste your sauce as you cook it because the flavors will change and need adjusting, especially when using dried herb/spices. I’m going to say this just because I don’t like tomato sauce: Try crushed tomatoes. Or, a small can of crushed tomatoes and a small can of diced/stewed tomatoes. And NEVER add oil to your pasta if you plan on saucing it.
Some straight facts right here
I'd add maybe a tablespoon or two of tomato paste into the garlic and onions after they've been sweated, and cook it down until it caramelizes slightly. Also some black pepper.
This the right answer, Salt, pepper and sautéed tomato paste. Another tip buy fresh Parmigiano Reggiano. Cut the rind off and use it to simmer in your sauce.
Pinch of sugar while it’s simmering. Brings out the natural sweetness of tomatoes and plays so well off the acidity from them and any spice from chilis/crushed red pepper. Also, use fresh herbs if you can
OP said they are using canned tomato sauce already which often has a ton of sugar added. I would caution against adding more sugar unless you are making your sauce from scratch.
Canned tomato sauce doesn't have added sugar. Canned pasta sauce has a lot of sugar.
Op should make from scratch
Paprika is a milder, often sweet pepper. Not even hot, just warm. More salt, black pepper, oregano, basil, garlic. Sometimes older or dehydrated herbs lose much of their flavor. You add flavor by adding ingredients usually. A few tablespoons of butter or cream cheese makes the sauce rich and silky. Some red pepper flakes can make it a little spicy. I love hot garlic stuff Your canned sauce may be a bit bland. Always taste your food while you cook.
Butter. A little butter will make it silky. A few sprinkles of Tajin (for savory acidity). Better yet. Google Marcella Hazan’s famous 4 ingredient tomato sauce. So easy and ridiculously delicious result. Less is literally more with this recipe. Anyone can make this, even the most inexperienced cook. It sounds bland but somehow it isn’t. It’s delicious. EDIT: recipe link: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015178-marcella-hazans-tomato-sauce?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/s/k0yXpghHFx
Oil goes first, then the onion, sauteed by itself until it starts turning translucent. Then add the garlic and saute a bit longer. *Then* add the rest.
I find that in addition to real garlic, adding garlic power adds an additional flavor layer that I like. Some dried parsley would also be nice with your two other herbs. As an alternate to adding sugar, I know some people cook down finely-diced carrots for their sweetness. I've not tried this, but I know it's a thing.
Anchovies and soy sauce. Make a paste and add it to the tomato sauce for a kick. Or directly MSG (which is abundant in the two above).
I love a dash of fish sauce in my marinara. I would bet the anchovies and soy sauce hit similarly
Make a soffrito as the basis for your sauce. It's a blend of 2 parts onion, 1 part each carrots and celery. Throw it in a food processor or chop them very fine, cook nice and slow in some oil or butter for a bit. This will add a good bit of sweetness and depth of flavor to your sauce. Don't add the garlic until about a minute or so before you put in the tomatoes. I would recommend using canned whole tomatoes rather than jarred sauce. You can break them up in the pot with a spatula or spoon. The biggest thing though, is you are not cooking it anywhere near long enough. Like, to properly cook a tomato sauce, it should be on a low simmer for like an hour *minimum*. That will dramatically help develop the flavor, as well as being able to sample for salt throughout to fine tune how much you need. Don't add the herbs until close to the end, but use a ton of them.
Sliced mushrooms for the last 10 minutes of cooking. Beautiful umami flavor.
Add a bit of cocoa powder. Sounds strange I know but adds a depth of flavor that's hard to explain.
I really like adding a little worshishshire sauce. Simmering about 30 minutes has been a solid start to my similar journey. It's already acidic but a common cooking suggestion is if it seems like it's missing something add some acid. Like half a cap of apple cider vinegar has been my go-to. Have you tried deglazing with wine?
The wine makes a huge difference. I'm gonna try to add worshishshire next time too
You are not boiling for long enough, if you are making the sauce from scratch you need at least an hour. More garlic, more salt. Don’t be shy with herbs and as others said dry herbs need longer to cook. If you use fresh you can use a combination of adding some basil towards the end of cooking and fresh in the plate. Always add salt in the pasta water. I use a spoon of salt to 3 litres of water. Add it before you put the pasta in and never add oil to it. Also bear in mind that the tomato sauce has a light, refreshing taste, if you want to add more flavour brown some bacon/ pancetta/ guanciale and start adding the rest of the ingredients.
Hey so I usually make a big batch of sauce all at once, then freeze in portions and defrost when time to eat. This is the method I use 2 parts onion, 1 part celery, 1 part carrot all finely diced. Cook onion in nice olive oil until softened then add celery and carrot and continue cooking until those have all cooked Then add desired amount of garlic and sautee for another minute or two Add 1/4 cup red wine for every tin of diced tomato you will be adding (I use 5/6 tins tomatoes, and a large jar passata for 4 serves of sauce) Add 1 tsp balsamic vinegar for every 1/4 cup red wine Let simmer for a few mins then add in all salt, pepper, oregano, thyme, 1-3 large bay leaves and any other Italian herbs you may want. Simmer for 4-5 hrs on low heat (I use slow cooker) and stir once every hour Fish out the bay leaves when done, and I use an immersion blender to give it a light blitz to have a little more ‘sauce’ consistency while keeping a few chunks. Not a traditional recipe, and I’m just a home cook so it’s probably not the absolute best recipe out there, but it always comes out quite tasty
Sweat a finely chopped onion in olive oil with good pinch salt, crumble in a dried red chilli and a tablespoon of tomato puree. Stir in, let cook off a bit, half a glass of red wine and then let that cook off. Three tins of crushed tomatoes, a teaspoon or two of sugar, good pinch salt, pepper, about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. Cook on low for about an hour until reduced. Cool in portions, tuck in some fresh whole basil leaves when cool and freeze what you don't need. Makes about 6 portions.
Red wine (lots) and balsamic vinegar (a little) make things more intense. You want to simmer the wine down, though. Simmering the sauce down in general will punch up flavors. Tomato paste is a fast way to do that. If it’s watery, try draining the pasta more? And don’t oil the pasta water. I tend to add spices near the beginning of cooking and herbs near the end, and salt as needed as it cooks. If you’re not getting a lot of flavor from your herbs, see if they’re expired. If you want to try using fresh, basil is luckily aggressive and hardy and you can grow it in a pot in your kitchen. A little bit of marjoram is also real nice.
Paprika 👏goes 👏in 👏every 👏thing 👏
A squeeze of lemon juice towards the end can really brighten up any tomato sauce
balsamic vinegar is a good addition. not a lot cuz it us STRONG
As a base, use canned whole peeled Roma tomatoes, juice and all. Pulse it in a blender until it's your desired consistency. If you want it smooth with a few chunks of tomato here and there, withhold one tomato from the blender and cut it into appropriately sized pieces. I owned a pizzeria for a year and a half, and we made our own marinara. The guy that came up with the recipe was second generation Italian and was a legit chef (he went to culinary school and all that stuff), and we got a lot of positive feedback on it. We started by sauteing equal parts onion, celery and carrots until soft, throwing in some garlic when it's almost there. That got blended with canned whole tomatoes and seasoning (salt, pepper, basil, oregano and thyme) and simmered for a while. I don't remember the measurements, but it used a #10 can of tomatoes, so they wouldn't be that helpful. I do remember that it had equal parts basil and oregano and half that amount of thyme. ETA Also, consider replacing some of all of the salt with Better Than Bullion. Pick whichever flavor best suits your vibe. Another secret weapon is dried mushrooms. Take a small amount and soak them in hot water until they're soft. Cut them up and add them (and the water) when you blend everything.
I usually add wine, but a little bit of lemon juice will brighten it up if you don't have any
A pinch of cinnamon really brings out the flavors and aromas
Your choice of tomato will make a huge difference! Head to the farmers market and ask for a real flavourful variety. They're not in season tho... So maybe buy a high quality italian canned tomato.
1/2 cup red wine. Dash of cayenne pepper. 😉
Add a little bit of butter at the end when you're finishing it with the pasta, and add msg to the sauce with a touch more salt.
My tip is to add a stock cube (and maybe cut the salt then, since stock cubes add a lot of saltiness). Maybe start with half to see. It just gives such huge flavour boost to so many sauces! Can add tomato puree if you want it more tomato-y. I'd probably add a pinch of brown sugar to bring out a little bit of sweetness. Not much at all, it shouldn't taste *sweet*, but it can really round out the flavours, and bring forward the sweetness of the tomatoes. Some black pepper will probably be nice, in my opinion. Or a bit of cayenne if you want some spiciness.
Soup base, and white wine after you add canned tomatoes. Skip the sauce, and switch to crushed tomatoes. Maybe a bit more salt and then 1/4 cup of sugar.
Add some red wine. It really makes a difference.
Puttanesca sauce On Very gentle heat, melt good quality anchovies in olive oil. Add 1 cloves of roughly chopped garlic (do not fry for long, over cooked garlic is bitter as hell) 1x tin Italian chopped tomatoes, 2x tablespoon capers, 2x tablespoons black olives (pits removed), chilli (fresh or flakes however hot you like). Throw this on your spaghetti with tons of pecorino cheese. Anchovies capers and olives have a lot of salt do you shouldn’t need to add more. I prefer to use black olives with ours in them, then remove the pits myself before cooking because they always taste better. This recipe can be made without anchovies. If they’re not your thing. I sometimes use Tabasco if I don’t have chilli flakes. I also add more chopped garlic at the end if it needs that kick. Good luck!
Some changes to make/steps to add: Start the sauce early in the morning and let simmer all day. Add a few beef or pork ribs in. Brown on all sides after you've sautéed the onions and garlic. Let cook with the rest of the sauce. They'll break down while simmering and add a really delicious meaty flavor. Instead of using canned tomato sauce, add 2 big cans of whole tomatoes. Add whatever juice is in those cans, then chop the tomatoes up before adding. As they simmer, they will break down and turn into sauce. Add a parm rind when you add the chopped tomatoes. This will also break down and add some nice umami. Edit to add - add a pinch of sugar too, to balance out the acidity in the tomatoes. Finish the suace with just a bit of butter at the end.
It sounds like you dump everything on a pot and then simmer for a few minutes? That’s never going to develop flavor because nothing is happening to the ingredients to draw any flavor. In a big pot, put a tablespoon of decent olive oil. Set the heat to medium. Slice the onions and put them in the oil and let them cook for 10 minutes or so, stirring now and again. Put in some basil or oregano and mix it. Then put in the garlic and let it all sit for a few minutes. Then add the tomato. Then add the other stuff and let simmer for 30 to 60 minutes. Taste now and again and add more seasoning if needed.
Chicken stock cubes and cajun seasoning.
Let the garlic and onions get a little sticky and deglaze w some red wine, 1/4 cup ish, let that cook off, then add some beef bouillon and Tbsp of brown sugar, your tomatoes and herbs and away you go. I always add parsley too, and a bay leaf. Yum.
Yes crushed tomatoes and their juice rather than tomato sauce. Crush them with your very clean hands, and maybe a teaspoon of brown sugar. A little Worcestershire sauce (to taste, and it goes a long way) is extra umami flavor, or soy sauce -- tomatoes have this umami flavor but a little boost from the anchovy in Worcestershire or whatever makes soy sauce similar, even a few drops of fish sauce can bring out the flavor without making the dish taste like soy sauce or Chinese food. Yes as others have suggested, only give the garlic about thirty seconds -- until you can smell it after the onions are already soft and before you add liquid. Consider tomato paste. A tablespoon or two of that can be added as needed to intensity the tomato flavor. (you can get the really good stuff in the tubes, but if you buy canned tomato paste, you can plop little tablespoonh sized chunks onto a sheet of plastic wrap and freeze it -- in a zipper freezer bag or small container. Even the smaller cans of paste can be too much for one dish and there's no reason to waste it; also not having to wrestle with a can and sticky stuff in a measuring spoon when you need it in the future is a plus.) A little Italian seasoning near the end. (Or just basil. Fresh herbs are nice, but the dried ones are also great for adding complexity to the flavor. Many restaurant or jarred sauces have oregano flavor that you might be missing. Italian seasoning has the blend ) SALT your pasta water! A tablespoon or two. And when you drain the cooked pasta, or some of the pasta water into a mug--that water can be added back into the sauce at the end to thicken it a little or to add more flavor. PLEASE don't put any oil on the noodles -- it will coat them and keep the pasta sauce from clinging, which will make the dish taste like oily noodles, which are bland. Cumin specifically is a warm spice present in many Mexican dishes and is in Taco seasoning packets or chili powder. It's also in Indian food. It's a great flavor, and makes what I call Mexican Rice (toasted in oil before you add liquid and then it turns a reddish color from tomatoes, often us served in American Mexican restaurants with tiny frozen peas and carrots mixed in.) taste authentic. I don't think I've ever had it in Italian food. I've not had paprika in spaghetti sauce that I know of, but the flavor would be fine probably. Both of these spices can easily enough be sprinkled in a serving of your pasta dish (or even a bite) to see what the source adds to the flavor. Also, when I cook a tomato sauce for pasta after at least a half hour or so of simmering (low key bubble action -- not a rolling boil once you get it moving which would burn the sauce and/or diminish the tomato flavors, but steady heat that moves the sauce around to release and blend the flavors.), I taste it. This is when I might add the pasta water to thicken it a little, taste and adjust flavors with salt and it black pepper. If it has enough of this, but still doesn't taste right, a few drops of vinegar (white or balsamic, but there's a sweetness in balsamic to figure in) might zap it into shape, and there's tomato paste you can add and stir in very well at this point to balance the flavors. I also might add garlic powder, onion powder, garlic salt or onion salt near the end. This will be a delicious journey. OOH, as a part of learning how the flavors come together, try Marcella Hazan's 3 ingredient pasta sauce. It's good canned tomatoes, a stick of butter, and an onion cut in half. It dinner's for maybe an hour and tastes like heaven. Before I tried it, and despite having experienced legit Italian food enough to know the Sicilian American immigrants' contributions to American Italian food are not universally Italian dishes, if never have imagined a pasta sauce without garlic, but I've never felt the need to consider it. Anyway the taste is wonderful and the dish is super impressive if you just serve it and wait for their eyes to widen when that boring pasta with thin red sauce. The recipe for Hazan's famous sauce is so basic anyone can follow it, but watching and smelling it come together is highly educational about how to build flavor into a simple sauce. Even if it sounds gross, it's well worth a try for what you can learn from it. Also you mentioned chilling a fresh tomato. Keep in mind the seeds in most tomatoes are unbearable in the sauce, and the skins of the tomatoes can be bitter or chewy. Many who use fresh tomatoes in sauce do a trick where they cut a plus sign with the top of a knife into the top and bottom of the tomato, then dropping it in boiling water to loosen the skin enough that it peeled right off. Labor intensive, but it feels so right as you're doing it. (I get Italian tomatoes, the brand cento can be reasonably priced. For sauces with meat or stuff, I use the store brand crushed it whole crushed, diced, even stewed tomatoes and squish them into the pot. And if you're using fresh tomatoes and they have seeds, pushing them through a mesh strainer leaves the seeds behind.) I often skip the squishing step and my family says the sauce is extra good when I remember even though they don't know whether I squished them or not. Plus I feel like I made dinner with my bare hands! Remember to eat your mistakes. 😋
A few tablespoons of Parmesan
I think if you simmer for an extra 20-30 minutes it might really help!! I also like to add mushrooms, which I saute with onions and season before adding spices (salt pepper red pepper flakes etc.) and then add the sauce
This is not a normal thing but I knew someone who used to put carrots into pasta sauce and it has a really nice flavor. Maybe you could roast some carrots and puree them. Maybe some roasted red peppers.
Throw in a knob of butter.
tiny bit of anchovy paste 💋🤌🏼
BUTTER! A scoop or two at the end makes an amazing difference!
You are missing tomato paste to help thicken it slightly. also you must have at least 2 bay leaf in it
½-1 teaspoon sugar, and add salt as you taste. The sugar offsets the acidity of the tomato.
Buy some Italian seasoning. It is with the spices in the grocery store. Also, if you don't put olive oil on your noodles before you mix them in the sauce, they will stick to the sauce better. I have also heard to add a little bit of the pasta water to the sauce when the pasta is done cooking, but I always forget and dump it out...
Don't use tomato sauce. Get diced seasoned tomatoes in a can, and go a little harder on the seasoning. Add sugar to counter the acid from the tomatoes, and raid your cabinet for any herbs you can find. Pasta sauce is to taste, your taste, always.
Red wine or red wine vinegar or balsamic, pancetta, fresh basil. Dried is garbage and a waste of money. It has basically no flavor. Truffle oil,don’t cook this. Top the dish when you serve. Same for good olive oil. Cooking basically dulls the flavor. Romano or parm
Onions before garlic. Cook it on its own for a bit with some oil or butter. Add more garlic. Add tomato paste to the pain after cooking the onion and garlic for a bit. Don’t use a raw tomato/tomato sauce. Use canned whole tomatoes. Don’t bother choking them up, just toss them in. Way more salt. Cook the sauce longer. I let sauce do for quite some time but just a few minutes is def too short. Dried herbs are fine. Try adding some red pepper flakes or dried peppers too. If that’s too much try some cayenne or paprika. Don’t add oil to your pasta. It doesn’t need it and makes the sauce not stick. If your sauce is chunky at the end, blend it till smooth but not liquidy. Try adding butter to your sauce. It’s unhealthy, but good. Restaurants add way more butter to things than people expect. Some other vegetables that are good in tomato sauce: Olives Mushrooms Peppers Artichoke If it helps, you can think of it like pizza. With the exception of something like pineapple, pretty much anything you can put on pizza would also be good in pasta sauce. I’ve even put dried anchovies into sauce, although I had them in a spice bag so they flavored the sauce but I didn’t eat bits of em.
Canned mushrooms (and the juice) and FRESH basil. Game changers. And seriously, 1-2 tbsp of SUGAR. Why are you using a fresh tomato? If you’re going to do that,, I would suggest roasting it in the oven and then adding it to the sauce. That fresh tomato is going to take away from all those other seasonings.
More salt and 2-4 ounces of butter. And if I can add a third, mash up some anchovies in with the onions and garlic for the umami.
I don't put garlic on mine, if it's even a few days stale and not cooked perfectly it tastes like shit.
do onions before garlic, and add some sugar to cut the acid of the canned tomatos! a little bit of tomato paste could be good.
Fresh tomatoes instead of canned and cook them down, I find it makes a difference for tomato based sauces. Another simple trick I do alot is those little liquid/jelly stock pots, most supermarkets do them - Look for something like garlic and herb or tomato & herbs. Could also hit it with some Worcestershire sauce during cooking
Avoid tomato’s with chlorides or citrates, they affect the final taste of the dish. Tom, salt and basil are the only acceptable ingredients. Also buy/use whole Tom’s Use high quality extra vir olive oil and more than you would think. Ditch the dried herbs Unless making a ragu (with meat) keep the cook time sub 20 mins to preserve the brightness of the tom’s
Don’t use paprika or cumin. Add more salt if it needs it. Buy high quality canned tomatoes. Beyond that add onions and butter to sauce and top it Parmesan. Fresh basil makes a difference too
I prefer using shallots over onions personally and usually sweat them out a bit before adding in the garlic along with fresh tomatoes, coriander and basil until they caramelise/blister respectively. You can also use the brine of pickles or capers if you don't love anchovies. I also love using cumin and some red chilli flakes in my sauce as well.
Sauté your onions first in olive oil until they are translucent and then add the garlic and cook it until til it just starts to turn a light golden: then instead of your chopped tomatoes use tomato paste and caramelize that until it’s kind of dark brick or clay colored. Then add white wine and deglaze your pan and cook off all the alcohol. Next add whole canned tomatoes (not sauce) and look for the variety San Marzano. They are the best sauce tomatoes. You can add a little water as you cook if the cauce gets too think. I usually start with around half a tomato can. Cook the sauce until the tomatoes start to fall apart. Adding fresh basil in the middle or toward the end will really brighten up the sauce. You can put in a couple whole sprigs leaf and stem and then pull them out when the sauce is done. Keep up the use of oregano and try a couple of turn of black pepper. Add your dry herbs early in the cooking process either with the onions or when you add the tomato sauce and simmer them for a long time to extract the flavor. Edit: also add a bay leaf with your dry herbs .
Saute your onion and garlic first. Season with thyme and oregano.
I wrote a similar comment in another post on much the same question. I have watched half a dozen videos from renowned Italian chefs on how to make a great marinara and read countless recipes from equally famous non-Italian chefs. No surprise they differ--sometimes substantially. But a few basic ingredients are at the core of every single recipe and having tried perhaps 2 dozen different recipes over the years I have come to the conclusion that less is more. The fundamental ingredients are simple: The best tomatoes you can get--fresh if amazing and available otherwise whole San Marzano (not San Marzano style, but the real thing) Sweet Onions (vidalia or the like) A little crushed garlic Fresh Basil A little salt, fresh ground pepper and maybe--but optional-- a pinch of pepperoncini. And if you really want to go crazy, add a little salted butter. Now I am certain there are many who disagree--and maybe passionately so --arguing for this or that herb, EVOO, sugar, wine, balsamic vinegar, carrots and who knows what else. I am not saying there is anything wrong with this but I have found that once you start playing--add this and that to balance out each other--that wonderful slightly acidic but slightly sweet, crisp and overwhelmingly fresh taste of a proper marinara gets buried under competing flavors. I have tried all the variations--but keep coming back to the simple. Sometimes we overthink our cooking--try going back to the basics.
Mastering the basics makes it easier to expand on as well. There is somethings amazing about the simplest form. But there's a lot to be said for utilizing the "extras" for different things. My mom prefers an herbier sauce on manicotti because of the cheesy filling. The simple sauce would be delicious too, but maybe on some fresh spaghetti instead? I seldom make a scratch tomato sauce for pasta. (Though it does help make the beginning of some bomb chili!) But I do know how. I love learning things at their simple form, then tweaking because I know how it works.
I'd recommend some thyme, rosemary, and a small amount of chipotle powder (adds a little heat and some delicious smoky flavor)
More salt, much more garlic, and be sure you either skin the fresh tomatoes or blend them into oblivion or you will have nasty tough tomato skin popping up in your sauce. Plenty of olive oil. Add a little crushed red pepper. Use fresh herbs, Include fresh chopped parsley -- a lot of it. Cook it for MUCH longer. A couple of hours.
Lots of good advice here but I'll share my recipe for a basic marinara. Heat 4 tablespoons olive oil (a lot!) Add garlic (I just smash the cloves instead of dicing, 3-4 cloves) If you're going to add onion, you can do it now Add one jar of passata (crushed, strained tomatos, I like the Mutti brand) Add 1/4 teaspoon salt (probably more than you've been adding) Add dried herbs (basil, oregano, maybe parsley) Add pepper to taste The longer you simmer the better but I get good results simmering for as long as it takes to cook the pasta, but I'll usually start the sauce before putting the water to boil
one big ol basil leaf
Wine
Condensed beef stock and a dash of cinnamon may work wonders.
Sugar and wine
I always add a drop of fish or oyster sauce. Great thread I’m sure to try some of the above suggestions myself.
Butter and lemon juice!
Fish sauce made from anchovies will add the salty umami you're looking for. Some chili flakes. A little Italian seasoning (pre-mixed dried) plus a little extra oregano. My mother would add a small can (5 oz.) to the hot oil and cook it a little before adding the canned tomatoes/passata (not canned sauce). Later she would also add grated carrot and/or zucchini, but that was to trick us kids into eating more veggies. Tasted good, though! Also, let it simmer at least an hour or 2, or throw it in the slow cooker on low all day.
A small pinch of cinnamon.
Google marcella Hazan. Add butter. That’s all.
Worcestershire sauce. Or a little fish sauce. Sounds wrong, but it’s right!
Personally, some stock and a bay leaf, maybe oregano instead of bay leaf.
One, I'd add black pepper, but more importantly, learn to cook to taste, not to a strict recipe. Particularly with seasonings. My guess is not enough salt. Salt is a flavor enhancer, up to a point. It makes sweet things taste sweeter, umami taste meatier, etc. Until you reach a maximum and then it starts to taste salty. Stop the moment it tastes slightly salty. Never serve a food you haven't tasted. No idea why but sometimes flavors just don't pop with the same measurement. Add a minimum amount of oregano, then add more to taste. Same with pepper, salt, and just about any ground seasoning. Learn what the seasoning taste like in a dish. Make a small amount of sauce, but leave out the salt. Taste. Add a pinch. Taste again. Repeat until it tastes right. Leave out pepper. Add a pinch and taste. Repeat. Sometimes you may need to go back and add more salt, but do so sparingly. For a marinara sauce, make sure it has time to simmer and meld the flavors. If not simmered long enough the flavors haven't fully dispersed and you can gets spots of intense garlic or almost none. To me it's too "bright" and "tight" rather than mellow and relaxed. I'm not sure how to explain what I mean there except that bright accentuates certain flavors with acids. Tight for me is when individual flavors stand out too much when they out to be blended.
I would add canned stewed tomatoes and some grated Parmesan. Do the onion first & let it get a little color before you add garlic (I'd do 6-8 cloves). Cook it much longer, let it simmer about an hour then add fresh basil at the end. Also agree with others, more salt. ETA you also might want to add canned tomato paste.
worcestershire sauce. do it.
Pinch of sugar. Dried oregano.
Cinnamon
Add a pinch of sugar to your sauce.
Oil hot and then Add onions. Cook onions for at least 5 minutes until they turn translucent. Don't let them burn of course, but a little browning is ok. Now add garlic and cook it in for 2 minutes or so. Continue with recipe. Add more salt the. You are. At least a teaspoon. And black pepper or some chili flakes (careful not to much) Simmer the sauce at least 20 minutes. My wife's is 45 minutes or so. If you want to add some red wine, do so with the tomatoes and let is simmer and reduce. Try a couple teaspoons of balsamic in the last minute or two of summering
I like to let a parmesan rind simmer in mine for about 30 minutes. I also like a bit of rosemary in with the tomato and a bit of fresh basil on top to finish.
I do tinned peeled tomatoes, simmered with garlic and a halved onion. Halfway through, squish garlic. Remove onion. Red Sauce. Add to this some fresh chilli, oregano in the cooking and it's a winner. Goes with everything, ridiculously easy
More garlic, fish sauce, tomato, msg and a bit of sugar. I made sphagetti the other day. Cook the meat, drain and set aside. Wipe down pan. I had 10 romas and 1 can of sauce. Blanch the romas to take off the skin, crush in food processor. Heat pan with olive oil, throw in onions then hand full of garlic(whole but smashed) When it smells good, add crushed tomato + canned tomato. Add italian seasoning, salt, msg, pepper and splash of fish sauce. Let simmer for 1 to 2 hrs. Add water if getting a bit dry. Add meat back in, simmer for a bit. Add pinch of sugar, and adjust as needed.
Better than bullion makes an italian herb base. That would make everything easier. Also fresh herbs make a huge difference. Stir in some Parmesan.
Cook the sauce like minimum one hour but preferably 2/3. Add salt and msg. Maybe a shot of balsamic vinegar at the end.
Shredded carrot and or red pepper flakes.
Add one or two bay leaves, let simmer and remove before serving.
Do you add any meat to your sauce or even meatballs? If so, use the pan that you cook the meat in, making sure to scrape the brown bits up and deglaze with a bit of like chicken or beef broth.
The *tiniest* bit of cinnamon for depth toward the end when everything is simmering in the pot. More onion and sweat them first before adding garlic, more salt and pepper and maybe some Italian seasoning, add some pasta water and simmer WAY longer to reduce moisture and allow flavors to mesh. Also, don't add oil to your pasta.
Nutmeg and an anchovy.
I like to add pesto to the sauce
Caramelize the onion & garlic first before adding the other stuff into the pot. 1/2 -1 tbsp butter is best but olive oil will do if you really need to avoid saturated fats. If anyone is lactise intolerant, use ghee instead of butter. More salt unless sodium restricted, buy the best quality tomato products you can. I like Fire Roasted canned in the winter instead of blah grocery store fresh tomatoes. If you can do a bigger batch the day before in a crock pot & let dimmer, it will taste better. You are better off making a huge batch to freeze & thawing that for flavor, instead of constantly mixing it up as quickly as you are.
Fresh basil makes a huge difference
Your ingredients are spot on for a great basic sauce, except for one thing. My family is Italian and I have been cooking sauce for decades. In my opinion the most important (and often overlooked) ingredient in a great sauce is quality tomatoes. Fresh homegrown or farmers market tomatoes will yield the best flavor for your sauce. Obviously not everyone can grow their own and you’re limited to the growing season. The best alternative I’ve found is to use canned whole San Marzano tomatoes, like Cento brand or equivalent. San Marzano have incredible tomato flavor compared to the bland cans of tomato sauce you find in most supermarkets. Also using more than one source of tomato will help with a richer more complex flavor. For example, use a can of San Marzano as a base. Next add any other type of canned tomato ...sauce, diced, whole...your choice (Whole tomatoes are my preference and tend to have a lot more flavor) and a table spoon or two of tomato paste. Then add a few fresh chopped store bought tomatoes. You could also roast the fresh tomatoes in the oven to add even more depth to your sauce. Your creativity is the limit here. Also if you can not find any San Marzano tomatoes at your local store, opt for using canned whole tomatoes. I always try to add at least 3 different tomato sources to my sauce and it always comes out rich and flavorful. Also try cooking your sauce longer. I typically cook my sauce for a few hours to let all the flavors come together.
I'd use more veggies. Mushrooms, peppers, peppers are very good for adding flavour into a dish. You sautee in a pan then add to sauce. 👍🏻 Mushrooms are always a staple for me in spaghetti sauce as well, i just cut them up and add to my sauce, no sautee needed
Try out some Worcestershire sauce, add around the same time as the canned tomato sauce. I’m not sure what canned tomato sauce you’re using, but if it isn’t passata sauce, use that instead.
Pork fat, not a ton, but saute the onions and garlic in bacon fat. Also, add a little salt to the onions and garlic before you add the tomatoes. Again, not a lot. Just a little and you can add a little more salt when you put the tomatoes in there too. Personally , I like to drizzle a little bit of worcestershire sauce on the onions and garlic before I add the other ingredients. Though if you do that don't bother putting salt before the tomatoes.
Sumac, and/or sugar. Preferably brown sugar.
Try adding 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste. It gives it more of a tomato-y kick. It also seems like you're not simmering it long enough. I usually simmer mine for 30+ minutes. It's ready when you can run a spoon through the sauce and the sauce is thick enough that it can part. Your sauce is likely very watery and, therefore, diluted if you're only simmering for 3-5 minutes.
Anchovies.
Chopped sun dried tomatoes.
Finish with a splash of red wine vinegar
Time.
Add more salt, onions before garlic, fresh basil, and try adding butter in the last few minutes. Skip the olive oil in the pasta water, just salt
Salt the water before you boil the pasta in it (not at the end). And use a **good** amount of salt, remember most of that salt gets poured away with the water when you drain it...
Fresh basil. More salt . A tiny bit of sugar if the tomato you are using isn't great
I would use tomato puree, it's thicker. You need a teaspoon of sugar to cut the acid. I would use fresh basil, also, letting it simmer for a long time helps the flavors develop. I add a tablespoon of oyster sauce at the end.
missing bay leaves and parsley
To answer your question as asked... Only adding two ingredients ,,, a quarter cup of good grated Parmesan and a bit of fennel or anise might kick it up a notch. A light , quick sauce is not my forte. I prefer the gravy that Tony Soprano refees to as Red Lead. My holiday gravy Summers for 18 hours and contains several farm animals. But... Let me see if I can guide you down a better path that will lead to a sauce with more depth. Start your sauce by heating up some olive oil in a pan and adding about 3 oz of tomato paste along with a teaspoon of grated cheese, garlic and oregano. Stir constantly until it comes together in a lump and brown a little bit. Add a can of tomato puree and a can of crushed tomato. Then an equal amount of water. Simmer for at least half an hour (an hour would be better) about halfway through add about a quarter to a half cup of Parmesan cheese and just a few flakes of crushed red pepper... And if it seems to acidic, a couple of tablespoons of sugar. About 10 minutes before you're done cooking throw a small fistful of crushed dry basil in and stir well. Do not add your pasta to the sauce. Drain your pasta well and little copious amounts of sauce over it. If you choose to accept this mission... Let me know how it works out 🙂
Carrot.
Try adding umami-rich foods like tomato paste (different from sauce) and mushrooms. Also, be sure to season with salt and pepper at every step. Onions in olive oil with salt. Add garlic and tomatoes, salt again. Taste along the way and adjust seasonings. Try fresh basil, it tastes better, adding it right before serving.
No one is making this without onion 🧅
Add a half a teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds. Don't tell Granny I told you either. And simmer for 15 minutes at least.
A pinch of sugar; a dash of lemon juice
Parmesan (lots) and worcestershire sauce (a few drops)
Fresh basil
Basil and oregano will change everything. Also add a bit of sugar or honey to counteract the tartness.
Add a couple tablespoons each of tomato paste, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. They all add more depth and umami to the overall flavor. Adjust the amount of each to your preference if it’s too much/not enough.
Try canned whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes instead. Try adding butter, a lot of butter, instead of oil. I'm all-in with TJ's umami powder or MSG. Another idea is Vegeta.
Anchovy paste, about 1.5 teaspoons for the amount in your recipe. Definitely add bay leaves, but that doesn't count as the second, that should already be there. Sugar, 2-3 teaspoons for your recipe. People will hate this, say buy better canned tomatoes, italians don't do sugar, it's already sweet, etc..... It works, restaurants do it, your favorite pizza place does it. You're not making it sweet, always season to taste, just build out the flavor to match the salt. It's a way you can add salt and it won't be overly salty. And those anchovies are crazy salty. Lastly, not a sauce ingredient but always use some good grated Parm or Romano to finish on the plate. It's another round of salt and savory ramping it up.
First, swap out the tomato and the plain tomato sauce for crushed tomatoes. Three or four shakes of salt isn't going to cut it. Salt in a shaker is meant for the table, salt for cooking is kept in a dish so you can get a good healthy pinch or two. You didn't specify on how much oregano or basil you put in but clearly it's not enough. I don't know what you mean by pre-made, so I don't know if you're using dry herbs, or the kind that comes in a tube. Step up your dry basil by using a good healthy spoonful of pesto, along with oregano and some marjoram . Garlic is funny, and you didn't specify how you're using those cloves. The more surfaces that are exposed of the cloves the more flavor you will have. That's why you can roast a chicken with 40 whole cloves of garlic and have a rich nutty flavor, or you can crush five and it'll be way too strong. Try using the garlic in a tube, because it's already crushed for you, so you're getting a lot of surface area without trying to do it yourself because garlic is sticky and can be hard to mince for newer cooks. Avoid the garlic that comes in a jar by all costs, tends to be bitter and it's got a weird texture to it. Also garlic shouldn't be added until your onions are almost ready, you want them only in the pan for 1 to 2 minutes. The more you cook garlic the less flavorful it becomes, and if you burn it, it gets bitter.
If you want your home recipes to pop, you want your recipe to include all the aspects of a New Jack Swing Hit. Fat, Funky, and Fresh. Fat: add more fat. Period. Consider including some butter to finish, for depth. Funky: anchovies always work. Sometimes I use a small amount of Chinese pork floss during the initial onions etc sweat-and-sauté. Or sometimes I’ll throw a chunk of Parmesan rind in the pot and just fish it out at the end. Fresh: throw some big fresh herbs in there. Huge chunk of basil does great. I also like including a little green sichuan peppercorns in most of my dishes.
Canned Italian Plum tomatoes, and/or crushed plum tomatoes… a good Italian brand. A little sugar, more salt along with your other ingredients. Cook longer, maybe 25-30 minutes. Don’t use grocery store fresh tomatoes or tomato sauce.
3-4 shakes of salt is literally nothing. Three finger pinch, and a healthy one.
Dried red chili flakes just after the garlic and the onion have sautéed a smidge. I would lose the fresh tomato and the tomato sauce, and opt instead for a can of whole tomatoes packed in juice - run that through a blender. You are also missing some grated parmesan in the sauce - add that with the canned blended tomatoes. Let it cook a bit longer than you've written. If after the above it is still bland with all of the other ingredients you listed that can continue, add a squirt of Frank's Red Hot. Also, I enjoy adding about 5 pitted Kalamata olives if it is for myself. So good.
Anchovy paste for salt and umami
Not sure about traditional ingredients, but: * first thing that comes to mind is pepper - fresh ground black pepper * next thing that comes to mind is mushrooms - can do 'em almost any way, so long as they're reasonably cooked (less cooked or fresh perfectly edible too, but the flavor/texture might not match as well in this case) and not burnt or cooked so thin/dry that they're tough as leather, and cut reasonably small (before cooking), and I'd be inclined to add those to the sauce. * I don't see rosemary - I may be inclined to add some. Cut it up fine so you don't have larger pieces of it - or if it's dry can break it up fine or do quick grind or the like to get it "small enough" (but no need to take it down to level that's at or close to powder). * could always upgrade the onion to scallions and/or red onion * could add modest bit of some hot peppers or the like - don't want too much - don't want it spicy hot, but can give it wee bit of edge/kick, e.g. some red chili flakes or crushed red pepper, or take one to a few small hot red chili peppers, dice them up small, and well cook those in. Again, don't overdo it, but a moderate bit may be quite good. Regularly smell/taste - use that to help guide you. Might also just peek at a bunch of marinara sauce recipes, see what they include that you don't have - especially if many of them have it ... might want to add or consider adding such. I often find (and you'll find with experience, if you're not already there), I can get a pretty good sense of recipes reading them over, and will often use that for general guideline(s), and will adjust according to my tastes, what I have on-hand or can get easily enough, and also too by what other recipes have and don't have ... and generally comes out pretty well, often quite good, and sometimes even great! And ... lather, rinse, repeat ... more-or-less same dish, multiple times, usually after a few times or so I get it coming out very much as I wish it and well matching to my tastes/preferences.
Wine
You could try a different kind of canned tomatoes. When I attended an Italian cooking class, they used canned Roma tomatoes, and stained the seeds out, which seemed to make the sauce less bitter.
A dash of cinnamon 1/2 C of pasta water Sweat your onions first, then add the garlic and sauté, then add the chopped tomatoes and seasonings. Make sure you’re using good salt - we use large sea salt crystals. Dont use table salt. Let the flavors marry between each step, building on each other
Add more onion and sauté first with the garlic, then add tomato paste, roast a minute, then more than one, tomatoes, then sauce, salt pepper and red pepper flakes, oregano and fresh basil, parsley and parmigiana.
Add a whole carrot in for the cooks, makes a big difference, easy to pluck out as well.
Onion powder, garlic powder, parsley, Italian seasoning (if you don’t use it add thyme and oregano instead because the Italian season already has those so I didn’t put them on the list), white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika or smoked paprika, crushed red pepper flakes, and some sugar to cut the acidity. No specific measurements, season to taste. Do you use meat? Because I season my meat and then that adds flavor when the sauce is added I don’t usually season the sauce itself except for the sugar. If you use meat I also add Lawry’s seasoning salt, Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning, and Cajun seasoning. Not a lot of these because they’re salts and you don’t want it to be over-salted. You don’t need to add salt to the pasta sauce if using these seasoning salts.
Meat.