Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Basil Sauce

Some nights I want dinner that tastes like it came from an Italian grandmother’s kitchen, and some nights I want dinner ready in twenty minutes. This spaghetti is both. It is the simplest pasta I know — ripe tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, olive oil and a mountain of Parmesan — and it is the one I make when I have had enough of complicated recipes and just want something good.

This is my spaghetti with fresh tomato basil sauce, and there is nothing fancy about it. The sauce is not a long, slow simmered thing; it is tomatoes cooked just long enough to go soft and sweet, with basil torn in at the very end so it stays bright. The pasta soaks up the sauce, the cheese melts over the top, and dinner is ready before you have even set the table.

Watch: Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Basil Sauce

Prep time: 10 minutes | Cook time: 20 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 400g spaghetti
• 600g ripe tomatoes, chopped (or 1 tin of good chopped tomatoes)
• 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• A big handful of fresh basil leaves
• 50g Parmesan cheese, finely grated, plus more to serve
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste (optional)
• A pinch of chilli flakes (optional)

Method

1. Start with the tomatoes. Put a large pot of salted water on for the pasta, and a wide pan on a medium heat with the olive oil. A wide pan matters here — it lets the tomatoes cook down quickly and evenly.
2. When the oil is warm, add the sliced garlic and the chilli flakes if you are using them. Cook for a minute, until the garlic smells sweet, but do not let it brown — browned garlic turns bitter, and the sauce will taste it.
3. Add the chopped tomatoes, the sugar and a good pinch of salt. Stir, and let it cook for ten to twelve minutes, stirring now and then, until the tomatoes have collapsed into a sauce. It should still look fresh and bright, not dark and heavy.
4. While the sauce cooks, drop the spaghetti into the boiling water. Cook it for one minute less than the packet says — it will finish cooking in the sauce, and that is where it picks up most of its flavour.
5. Before you drain the pasta, save a mugful of the starchy cooking water. This is liquid gold for a pasta sauce: a splash of it makes the sauce cling to every strand, instead of sliding off.
6. Drain the spaghetti and tip it straight into the pan with the sauce. Toss it together over a low heat for a minute or two, adding a splash of the reserved pasta water until the sauce coats the spaghetti in a glossy layer.
7. Take the pan off the heat and tear most of the basil leaves over the top. Toss them through — the heat of the pasta will soften them, and the smell is wonderful. Save a few leaves for the top.
8. Serve in warm bowls, with the Parmesan scattered generously over the top and the last of the basil on each one. A drizzle of your best olive oil over each bowl never hurt anyone. Eat it straight away, while it is still warm and the cheese is melting.

Serving and Storage

Serve this spaghetti the moment it is tossed together — pasta waits for no one, and the sauce is at its best when it is clinging to warm strands. If you have leftover sauce, it keeps in the fridge for three days and freezes well for a month; the pasta itself does not keep as well, so cook only what you need.

Tips

A few things that make this pasta better. Use the ripest tomatoes you can find in summer, and a good tin of tomatoes in winter — a bland tomato makes a bland sauce, and no amount of salt saves it. And do not skip the pasta water; it is the difference between sauce that sits on top of the pasta and sauce that hugs it. The pasta should be a minute underdone when it meets the sauce — it finishes cooking there, and comes out perfect.

That is spaghetti with fresh tomato basil sauce: twenty minutes, one pot, one pan, and dinner that tastes like someone cared. Make it on a busy evening, when you want something simple and good, and see if it becomes your weeknight regular too. It is easy to make your own as well — a handful of olives or capers stirred into the sauce gives it a salty bite, and a tin of butter beans makes it a proper filling meal on its own. In the depths of winter I sometimes roast the tomatoes with a little garlic first, which deepens the flavour beautifully, and in summer, when the basil is coming out of our ears, I blend the extra leaves into a quick pesto for another night. The method stays the same, and the sauce stays fresh and bright. If you try it, tell us on our Contact page — we love hearing what home cooks do with the recipes here.