20-Minute Tomato Sauce - Cooks Illustrated

Published May 1, 1997.

We test the best method for making a quick, simple pasta sauce using only canned tomatoes, garlic, salt, olive oil, a dash of sugar, and basil.

The Problem

The making of tomato sauce is often thought of as an all-day affair.

The Goal

A simple recipe for tomato sauce that would be ready in close to the time it takes to boil water and cook pasta.

The Solution

Given that good fresh tomatoes are a rare commodity and that we wanted a sauce that home cooks could use year-round, we decided to use canned tomatoes. Diced tomatoes are very convenient because you can dump the entire contents of the can into the pot; with whole tomatoes, using all of the packing liquid resulted in a substantially thinner sauce. After conducting a number of tests, we determined the crucial ingredients to be garlic, fresh basil, olive oil, salt, and sugar. Treatment of the garlic warranted special attention. Recipes with browned garlic often resulted in a bitter sauce. In a recent story, we had discovered that a garlic puree diluted with water and sautéed briefly in olive oil provided a mild, even garlic flavor while greatly reducing the possibility of overcooking the garlic. This proved to be the best method for the tomato sauce.

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America’s Test Kitchen is a 2,500-square-foot kitchen located just outside of Boston. It is the home of Cook’s Country and Cook’s Illustrated magazines and is the workday destination for more than three dozen test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes until we understand how and why they work and arrive at the best version. We also test kitchen equipment and supermarket ingredients in search of brands that offer the best value and performance. You can watch us work by tuning in to America’s Test Kitchen (www.americastestkitchen.com) on public television.