A pasta sauce is an Italian kitchen’s most crucial recipe! Make the perfect homemade San Marzano tomato sauce with this easy, restaurant-quality recipe with authentic Italian flavors. Bursting with flavor, this is a simple Italian pasta sauce made from scratch in minutes!
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Whether preparing a quick weeknight Italian meal or hosting an Italian-themed dinner party, a homemade tomato sauce recipe is at the heart of Italian cuisine. My Italian Pomodoro sauce is a vibrant, timeless sauce that is so versatile.
It can be tempting to buy a jar of pasta sauce when you’re making an Italian dish. But I want to tell you that it’s so easy to make it from scratch that you’ll want to make this sauce a part of your weekly meal rotation!
I like to make a double batch and freeze the sauce for future use. It’s so easy! I use this sauce to make lasagna, pizza, eggplant parmesan, cannelloni, and simple dishes like penne pomodoro.
By using canned whole San Marzano tomatoes and pantry ingredients, you can create a marinara sauce that’s DIY, homemade, and healthy!
➡ This sauce works well with homemade cannelloni or eggplant parmesan. If you enjoy Italian food, try some of my other recipes, such as Instant Pot spaghetti and meat sauce and Instant Pot penne with sausage!
Ingredients and Tips
🧂 Ingredients You’ll Need for this Simple San Marzano Tomato Sauce Recipe
💡 Ingredient and Recipe Tips for Italian Pasta Sauce
🍅 Tomato: The recipe calls for San Marzano peeled tomatoes, which have excellent flavor and rival fresh tomatoes. Cento brand is available at most American grocery stores. Buy whatever brand of San Marzano plum tomato you can afford to buy.
🍯 Sugar: The ingredients image does not have sugar, but I like adding it! I find that sugar enhances flavor and balances tartness. You can reduce or omit. You can add ½ cup shredded carrots to give it some sweetness.
🌶️ Spices: Add more crushed red pepper if you like spicy sauce.
🌿 Herbs: Fresh herbs taste great when in season. If using fresh basil, add ¼ cup fresh basil (minced) to the sauce during the last minute of simmering. Or add ¼ cup of chopped fresh parsley or a tablespoon of fresh oregano (1 teaspoon dried).
❓ FAQs
The San Marzano whole tomatoes are added with the liquid. No draining required.
To make the sauce with fresh San Marzanos, you’ll need to blanch and peel the tomatoes.
Yes, you can use crushed tomatoes. You will get a smoother sauce with less texture and flavor. Authentic San Marzano tomatoes are grown in a specific region of Italy and are especially suited for making Italian tomato sauce.
Once it’s done cooking, use an immersion blender to smooth the sauce. Once the sauce has cooled, you can also use a regular blender.
First, cool the sauce completely. Pour the sauce in 1-cup portions into a freezer bag (I like to set the bag in a large mug). Squeeze out as much air as possible and lay the bag flat on a baking sheet. The frozen bags can then be stacked.
♨️ How To Make San Marzano Tomato Sauce
- Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Saute onions and garlic.
- Add San Marzanos and spices and simmer.
- If desired, cool the sauce and blend lightly to make it smooth. Serve over your favorite pasta or as a pizza sauce.
San Marzano Sauce – Homemade Pasta Sauce
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 cup onion diced
- 2 tablespoon garlic minced
- 2 cans San Marzano tomatoes (peeled whole) – each can is 28 oz. or 794 grams
- 2 tablespoon granulated sugar optional [See Note 1]
- 2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper or to taste
- ½ teaspoon black pepper powder
- 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
Instructions
- Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.
- Add onions and saute until translucent.
- Add garlic and saute for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
- Stir in tomatoes (with juice) and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Using a potato masher, crush the tomatoes until broken up into smaller pieces.
- Simmer for another 10 minutes.
- Add sugar, basil, crushed red pepper, black pepper and salt. [See Note 2]
- Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Use San Marzano tomato sauce in all your favorite Italian recipes, or serve over plain pasta! [See Note 3]
Notes
Nutrition
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I am not a certified nutritionist. I provide my best estimate of nutritional information merely as a courtesy to my readers. If you depend on nutritional information for dietary or health reasons, I suggest using your favorite online nutrition calculator to confirm the nutritional value of this recipe based on the actual ingredients that you use.
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Claudia Cann says
Yum, going to give this a try real soon!
Brice Abell says
Great!!! Another foody coming up to the plate! I make one very similar to this one.
Enjoy
Neena says
Thanks for sharing. Does look similar! I also make another version where I roast tomatoes in the oven – but you’ve gotta have fresh tomatoes!
Paffi S. Flood says
Yum. Can’t wait to give this a try!
Neena says
Please do, and let me know how it turns out!
Roxann Ortmann says
I do a lot of canning and made my own pasta sauce a few years ago. Will be making some this year when the tomatoes get ripe and will share the recipe with you.
Neena says
Thanks Roxann! Would love to hear about your canning adventures this summer.
Lindsay says
Fabulous sauce recipe. Thank you for making it big on flavor and small on time prep. Does it freeze well?
Neena says
Thanks for your comment! Yes, it does freeze well. If I’m making a dish like lasagna, I use up most of it, but if I’m using it over spaghetti, I freeze the leftover sauce in ziploc bags and thaw in the fridge or on the counter. Hope you get a chance to try it out!