Nonna's Pasta Pomodoro

Bowl of pasta pomodoro sitting on top of two folded napkins

This is my nonna Enza's pasta al pomodoro recipe! Using fresh tomatoes, the sauce come together in the amount of time that it takes to boil the pasta water, and cook the pasta!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 20

Servings people

Calories 768.88kcal

Author Pina Bresciani

Ingredients

¼ cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup onion, chopped into small pieces
4 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small piece parmesan cheese, including the rind
250 grams pasta (penne)
6 leaves fresh basil, torn into pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In a shallow sauce pan, over medium heat, heat olive oil.
In mean time, boil a large pot of water and cook pasta in salted pasta water until al dente.
Add garlic and onions, and sauté until fragrant.
Add tomatoes and parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
Cover, and let simmer for 20-25 minutes.
Take the cover off the pan, remove the piece of parmesan cheese, and and stir in fresh basil. Add more salt and pepper if needed.
Mix sauce in with pasta. Plate pasta and garnish with more parmesan cheese.

Video

Notes

I used penne for this recipe, but you can use almost any type of pasta you'd like - spaghetti, cavatelli, ravioli etc
Use cherry tomatoes only for this sauce (no grape/roma/beefsteak tomatoes!). They're the best tomato to make a fresh tomato sauce.
There's no need to peel, seed or puré the tomatoes.
If you want to make this recipe vegan, you can omit adding the piece of parmesan while cooking, and skip topping with parmesan once plated.
If the sauce is ready before the pasta is finished cooking, turn the heat down to low to keep it warm.

Nutrition