Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce with Onion and Butter

I recently had the pleasure of meeting, cooking and dining with Marcella and Victor Hazan at their home in Florida.

At 87 years old, Marcella Hazan is a legend in the culinary world, having influenced millions of Americans on the art of Italian cooking.

Of all recipes, I think this is simple Tomato Sauce is what she’s most famous for.

Read my post and see photos of my visit with Marcella and Victor Hazan.

Marcella’s Tomato Sauce: 3 ingredients

Four, if you count the pasta as well.

1 whole onion, one 28-ounce can of whole, peeled tomatoes (from San Marzano if you can find them), 5 tablespoons of butter and pasta of your choice. I used salted butter, which let me omit the added salt to the sauce (and I also salt my boiling pasta water too)

Place the butter, onion and tomatoes (I’ve roughly chopped the tomatoes first) into a pot and simmer uncovered for 45 minutes.

Until it looks like this, where droplets of fat float freely from the tomato:

Remove the onion and discard if you must (but secretly, I enjoyed it with a little salt and pepper)

This is what tomato sauce is all about!

Serve over pasta.

Victor and Marcella sent me home with a gift of custom made Italian sausage by Paul Bertolli:

And so we grilled them outside…but a little boy was impatient and couldn’t wait for me to finish my photoshoot.

After I scolded him for grabbing the sausage with his hands before dinner was served, I turned around to get the other plates dished up.

And caught him….

in the act…

of super-fast slurping…hoping not to get caught…

look at that slurptastic action!