The Best Tomato Sauce You'll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality)

Hi, I'm Lish Steiling,

I'm a professional chef, and today

I'm going to show you

how to make the best tomato sauce

[tomatoes squishing] at home.

I'll be walking you through

all the steps to make a delicious tomato sauce,

so you don't always have to grab for the jar.

This is tomato sauce 101.

[drumming]

Today I'm going to be showing you

how to make Pomodoro sauce.

Pomodoro is a classic Italian sauce

that really showcases the tomato.

Because guess what?

Pomodoro literally means tomato.

[twinkling]

There's less chopping,

there's less cutting,

it comes together quickly

and it still gives you a beautiful velvety sauce.

[upbeat music]

Let's start off with the aromatics.

We're starting out,

one red onion.

[light tapping]

Cut off our edges, half it and peel it

and that's ready to go.

The red onion has a little bit more sweetness

than a yellow onion or a white onion,

so it just really brings out

the natural sugars in the sauce.

We have one carrot that we are simply going to peel.

The nice thing is, with this Pomodoro,

is that you're not really chopping anything,

if you're chopping it, you're going to be making a marinara.

With Pomodoro, you're leaving it whole

so that you can remove the larger chunks,

once they've done their job.

Now, our garlic.

But, we're just going to put these cloves in

smashed and peeled.

So you're going to infuse the oil

with all of the oils

of the garlic,

and then again,

you can remove and discard the garlic cloves.

Last but not least,

the magic ingredient,

Parmesan rind is adding a nutty, salty,

earthy, rich flavor to it

and the cheese itself, we'll use later for the pasta.

So we are using a 28 ounce can of San Marzano tomatoes.

I prefer using canned tomatoes

because they're picked at their prime,

so they're always going to be delicious.

[liquid squishing] Let's hand crush

some tomatoes.

The Nonnas in Italy have been doing it this way for years,

so I say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

This is how you know if a salad is coated in dressing,

this is how you know if the tomatoes

are the texture you want.

That's it for prep,

let's start cooking.

[upbeat music]

So we have our stainless steel sauce pan heating up here,

we're going to just put it over medium-ish heat.

A little bit of olive oil.

You're looking for the oil to dance in the pan,

it should move freely,

that means that it's warmed up.

We are just going to throw in all of our garlic cloves.

[sizzling] I'm adding some salt to it

and lightly brown it,

so that you're bringing out the natural sweetness.

Oh, if you could smell what I smell right now.

So I'm going to go ahead and add in our tomatoes.

If you pour the tomatoes over the wooden spoon,

it won't splatter as much.

We're just going to nestle in our aromatics,

red onion there,

our carrot, which is going to add sweetness and earthiness,

Parmigiano Reggiano rind,

which is the secret love ingredient.

Some basil, right? Some basilico,

we're just going to tear it, throw it in,

extra squeeze of olive oil.

The fat adds the richness

and that texture that we're looking for.

[light tapping] We're going to

let this come to a simmer

for about 25 to 30 minutes,

until all of the infusion has happened,

and the carrots are tender.

While we let this simmer, you can get your pasta water on.

Take a bath.

It's a good timer for a bath,

that way you don't get all wrinkly.

So this has been simmering for about half hour or so.

[light tapping] Smells delicious.

We're going to give it a taste.

[light slurping]

[light clinking] Oh, you get the basil,

you get the sweetness.

Needs more salt.

The only way to know

if something is properly seasoned is to taste it.

You'll end up with a sink full of spoons but,

the food will be perfect.

[light clinking] Lovely.

All right, so it's time to remove and discard

all of our whole aromatics.

The onions are nice and tender,

same thing with the carrot.

Mm.

I try to get out the majority of basil,

if some of it gets pureed in there, I'm not mad at it.

Let's talk about this parm rind, huh?

All of this cheese is nice and soft and gooey

and you can scrape it in there

and get some of those milk solids in.

Whatever is left

you eat, because parm rind is completely edible.

[slurping] Mm.

It's like a giant cheese curd with tomato sauce.

It's amazing.

So if it was a marinara sauce,

we would've chopped all of those aromatics much finer

and we would just leave it in here.

But this is a Pomodoro, so it's all about the tomato.

Those aromatics have done their job

and this sauce is actually ready to use right now.

If you want a smoother sauce,

you could pulse it a couple times with an immersion blender,

which is exactly what we're going to do.

[upbeat music]

The texture is a personal preference,

you have full control over it.

All right, I'm actually happy with it right there.

And you have this

very emulsified, like almost creamy looking tomato sauce.

That's what we're going for.

Oh, it's just perfect.

It has sweetness, it has saltiness

and the nuttiness from the cheese.

It has our baseness from the basil.

I mean, you don't get control like this

out of a jarred sauce.

Let's plate it up.

[upbeat music]

Today I'm going to be making some spaghetti Pomodoro.

[slurping]

It's almost perfectly Al Dante

and it's going to finish cooking in the sauce

and absorb all of that flavor.

The pasta water helps thicken the sauce,

it helps the sauce cling to the pasta.

Oh yeah, look at that, huh?

Parmigiano Reggiano.

It's not spaghetti Pomodoro without Parmigiano Reggiano.

[soft music] [pasta squishing]

Do you see how beautiful this is?

Perfection.

And I just give the little twist in there.

One more, because

[light scraping] this girl's hungry.

Turn the bowl.

[light scraping]

I love it.

A little bit more olive oil.

Aw.

Don't you just want to dive into this?

[upbeat music]

It's magic.

It's magic.

So yes, we use this Pomodoro with pasta today,

but use it in any application

that you would use a store bought jarred sauce.

I mean,

freeze it, bathe in it,

do what you got to do,

I totally understand.

All I can say is,

it's totally worth it.

[upbeat music]

You can thank me later.