No Frills Cooking: Basic Red Sauce combines taste and convenience

When I was little, there were two snacks that I demanded on a regular basis. The first was plain Romaine lettuce — it was crunchy and I liked green things. The second was store-bought spaghetti sauce in a bowl, eaten with a spoon like soup — spaghetti not included. Easy and convenient, but probably not the best for a budding palette.

Here’s the thing: I don’t eat plain pasta sauce in a bowl anymore (I can almost hear my mother saying “thank goodness” as I type this), but I do try to make meals that are easy and convenient. That’s where this basic red sauce comes in. With only three steps and three main ingredients, this 30-minute recipe solves a lot of my problems, from: “I forgot I invited six friends over for dinner and have nothing to make,” to “I’m home after a two-hour meeting that could have been an email, and now I’m hangry.”

This sauce serves as a great base for a variety of dishes, like classic spaghetti and meatballs or eggplant Parmesan. You can easily tweak it to incorporate other flavors, such as adding cream to make a richer sauce, or adding mushrooms for an earthy flavor. One of my favorite things about this recipe is that it makes a big serving and freezes well, meaning I can take out a Tupperware in the morning before work and have it ready to put on my pasta when I get home. All that’s left to do is to decide how much Parmesan cheese to put on top of my dish (here’s a hint: No limit exists).

While I’ll occasionally stare longingly at a jar of pasta sauce in the grocery store and reflect on the “good old days,” I know that this fresh-tasting red sauce will be waiting for me when I get home. With minimal cleanup and the strong possibility that this will be served with some carbs and a lot of cheese — what could be bad about that?

Basic Red Sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, minced (if you have a microplane, it’s a great tool to easily grate garlic cloves)

1 can Italian-style crushed tomatoes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Pinch of red pepper flakes

In a large saucepan over medium heat, heat the olive oil. When it shimmers, add the minced garlic and sauté for a minute or two. Add the crushed tomatoes quickly, so the garlic does not burn. Cover and simmer on medium-low heat for 20–25 minutes. Season with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes to taste. Ready to serve.

This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 5:07 PM with the headline "No Frills Cooking: Basic Red Sauce combines taste and convenience."