The best dishes in life are the easy ones that champion good flavour with perfect cooking, and pasta certainty falls within that category. That simplicity means it makes total sense that the 'world's best pasta sauce' is made up of just three common ingredients. No matter if you're needing some warming comfort food or trying to stick to a strict budget, pasta and tomato sauce is the perfect answer.
This particular sauce can be made when your cupboards are stripped bare and you're frantically looking for something to stave off the pull of an expensive and unhealthy takeaway. Many of us reach for jars when we're in a rush or can't be bothered to cook but making your own sauce from scratch couldn't be easier - and it's probably cheaper too.
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According to Italian American food writer Marcella Hazan, a good pasta sauce is remarkably simple and economical, too, meaning it's far cheaper and healthy than any store bought products.
Marcella, who died in 2013, was born in Cesenatico, Italy, in 1924 and went on to open a New York cookery school and write hugely respected cookbooks, so what she says goes when it comes to a good old pasta sauce.
In one of her books, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella advises using only three ingredients in tomato sauce: tinned tomatoes, an onion and a generous knob of butter. It couldn't be easier!
The 1992 recipe is still revered by food writers and cooks alike. It's especially helpful for big family dinners as pasta and sauce is always a hit with absolutely no chopping is required.
Marcella's precise instructions are to put half a peeled onion into a pot with butter and tinned tomatoes and to leave it all to simmer for 45 minutes.
Food publication Delish dubbed the sauce "the best in the world."
Her husband Victor talked to Epicurious about her efficient methods: "Marcella was a genius when it came to taste. She had an immediate understanding about how flavour affects a dish.
"She asked herself, 'Why chop an onion? Why sauté? I'm going to put the onion, tomato, and butter together and forget about it'."
It's bold to claim this is the best sauce in the world as that is a subjective matter but Italians are famous for their simplicity in cooking. It's all about the produce – tomatoes being one of the most important.
"No other preparation is more successful in delivering the prodigious satisfactions of Italian cooking than a competently executed sauce with tomatoes," Marcella says in her book.
Her sauce is very rich, putting the natural flavours at the forefront of the taste. Others favour different techniques, chefs like Jamie Oliver add four cloves of garlic and garnish with fresh basil.
BBC Good Food recommends starting with a classic mirepoix base (diced onions, celery, carrot), and scores of top chefs use various herbs and oils and other trickery to elevate their dishes.
Food writer Felicity Cloake suggests the more classic use of olive oil in tomato sauce. She also puts in a pinch of sugar and some red wine vinegar.
The thing to do is experiment. Garlic or no garlic, parsley or thyme or basil or rosemary, as long as the tinned tomatoes are good and there's parmesan on the table, we imagine people will be well fed.
