Pasta With Butter Roasted Tomato Sauce

Sometimes, you just come upon (and yet still change lol) a recipe that is absolutely amazing. I was looking through an old issue of Bon Appetit (I have approximately 40,00000 old magazines. It’s a sickness.) when I saw the recipe that has ultimately ended up here with all of its changes. As it was, while it was definitely intriguing; I mean….butter… But it seemed….lacking, rather boring. But still interesting enough to try. I had never even considered making pasta sauce in the oven. But what a game changer this is. No splatters all over the stove and oh…my…gosh….the flavor of this is fantastic. The tomatoes that roast in all their juices in the oven, mixed with the butter, the sausage (my addition), the garlic, the onions, oregano and basil (also mine)…honest. You want to try this recipe. Trust me on this one. You throw this all together after cooking the sausage and that’s it… just cook it. You end up with a thick, rich, full of flavor pasta sauce and no messy stove top. Win Win.

My husbands reaction (he was skeptical) was “you can make this any time you want”. Even my five year old ate all of his serving. One thing. I am posting this how I made it. The original was half the amount of tomatoes. I doubled it and that was just enough to serve five of us with my husband having two servings.  I did however, not use the full amount of butter doubled. It would have been a full stick and at 3/4 of a stick, it seemed like more than enough.

Go. Make this. Thank me later.

You know the drill….. 🙂

Pasta With Butter Roasted Tomato Sauce

• 2 28 ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes
• 10 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 1 large onion, diced (about 1 1/2 to 2 cups)
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, sliced
• 1 lb Italian sausage links
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar (cuts the acidity of the tomatoes)
• black pepper to taste
• cooked pasta (I used 2 12 ounces boxes of spaghetti)
• Parmesan cheese for serving

1. Cook your sausage in a pot of simmering water until tender. Then drain the water, lay the links in the pan and brown them all over. Let cool until easily handled and then cut into bite sized slices.
2. Preheat your oven to 400. Dump the tomatoes in a large deep baking pan and break them up. Easiest way I’ve found over the years is to pierce the back of the tomatoes with your finger cause if you try to just break them, you’ll end up with a face full of juice. Add in the rest of the ingredients, ending with the butter.  Stir well to mix.
   

   This is what it looks like before you put it in the oven

3. Bake at 400 for 35 to 50 minutes or until the sauce has gotten almost jammy in consistency, stirring once or twice during cooking. If you like a looser pasta sauce, take it out sooner. If you like a thicker one, cook longer. Simple as that.
   

   Here’s what it looks like when it comes out (I know; the photo stinks)

4. Serve over pasta with Parmesan cheese.

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