Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce
The freshest of tomato sauce recipes, made with barely cooked tomatoes, basil and seasonings. This simple weeknight meal comes together in no time!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 30, 2024
“What do you do for a living?” they ask. I never know how my response will go over or which questions will follow. Most often, the questions are, “How did you get into that?” and, “where do you get your recipes?” On a recent flight, I got a bold, “How do you make money doing that?!” from my seat mate. All fine questions, mind you.
I never have a good answer to the recipe source question. Typically, the recipes are a composite of ideas from restaurant meals, magazines, other blogs, cookbooks and suggestions from friends and readers. Sometimes I wake up with ideas; sometimes they pop into my head when I open my refrigerator; sometimes they come to me when I’m deep in conversation during happy hour. I always try my best to give credit where credit is due.
Today’s recipe is more straightforward—it’s from an old issue of Gourmet Magazine that I’ve been wanting to try forever, courtesy of a special edition from Bon Appetit… cross-referenced with America’s Test Kitchen’s vegetarian cookbook and fiddled with to meet my expectations. That’s pretty straightforward for me these days.
I finally got a chance to try it when I came across some big, juicy, local tomatoes at Whole Foods. I knew just what to do with them and flipped open my sources when I got home. America’s Test Kitchen wanted me to chop up the tomatoes and let them marinate for up to three hours, but I was hungry-bordering-on-hangry, and a three-hour wait wouldn’t do.
Gourmet’s version suggested grating a portion of the tomatoes to get some nice and juicy pulp, then letting the mixture marinate for 10 minutes. Much better! I mixed up the sauce and let it rest while I brought a pot of water to boil and cooked my pasta. Both sources suggested simply tossing the raw tomato sauce with hot cooked pasta, but I thought it was a little too raw in that state, a little too what’s pico de gallo doing in my pasta, if you will.
I wasn’t sure the pasta was blog-worthy until I tried my reheated leftovers. They were amazing. I took that as inspiration and tried just barely cooking the fresh tomato sauce while tossing the pasta with a little bit of starchy cooking water. That was just the ticket—the tomatoes benefit from a little warmth, and the starchy cooking water turns the raw tomato runoff into a sauce that lightly coats the spaghetti.
Granted, this recipe’s flavor will be almost entirely dependent upon the tomatoes you use, so pick some good ones. You want ripe, almost over-ripe tomatoes. You can, of course, skip my suggestion to warm up the sauce and just toss it with warm pasta for Italian-flavored tomato pasta.
Last but not least, I felt like Parmesan added quite a bit of personality to this dish, but check my notes for substitution suggestions. Let’s hear it for ripe summer tomatoes!
Tomato surplus? Here are a few tomato recipes that will use them up:
- Tomato Basil Bruschetta with Balsamic Drizzle
- Easy Tomato Salad
- Heirloom Caprese Salad
- Baked Eggs on a Bed of Roasted Cherry Tomatoes
- Mediterranean Tomato and Feta Dip
Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato Sauce
The freshest of tomato sauce recipes, made with barely cooked tomatoes, basil and seasonings. This simple weeknight meal comes together in no time! Recipe yields 2 large (as in, restaurant-sized) portions or 4 more reasonable servings.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds ripe tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon sugar, optional
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 very small garlic clove (or ½ medium clove), pressed or minced
- ½ pound whole grain thin spaghetti or angel-hair pasta or rotini/fusilli or penne
- Optional but recommended: ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- ¼ cup chopped fresh basil
Instructions
- Core and coarsely chop two-thirds of the tomatoes. Halve the remaining tomatoes down the middle and discard the tough top part where the tomatoes met the stem, if it exists. Rub the cut sides of the tomatoes against the large holes of a box grater set in a large bowl. Leave the tomato pulp in the bowl and discard the skin.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, sugar, several twists of freshly ground black pepper and the pressed garlic to the bowl. Mix well. Let the mixture marinate while you cook the pasta.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and then cook the pasta just until al dente, according to package directions. Reserve about a cup of the pasta cooking water before draining the pasta.
- Drain the pasta, then immediately return it to the pot. Pour in all of the tomato sauce and a small splash (about ¼ cup) of the pasta cooking water. Cook over medium-low heat for about 1 to 2 minutes, tossing often (gentle now!), just long enough for the tomatoes to soften a bit and for the starchy tomato water to coat the pasta.
- Remove from heat and toss with (optional) Parmesan and (mandatory) basil. Serve immediately.
Notes
Recipe adapted from Gourmet and The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook.
Make it dairy free/vegan: Skip the Parmesan cheese. You can make up for some of the cheesy flavor with a light sprinkle of nutritional yeast or, better yet, vegan Parmesan.
Make it gluten free: Use a firm gluten-free pasta, like a corn and quinoa blend.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
So easy and so delicious! Thanks for the reminder about a small piece of garlic. It was just perfect!
Made this exactly as written for lunch today with some enormous ripe tomatoes from the farmers’ market here in the Champagne region of France. De-li-cious! Thank you! The grating of the tomatoes is key, I believe.
I made this and used fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden. It was so delicious. Thank you!
This recipe was delicious! I found your site as I was looking for a recipe to use some of our home grown tomatoes.So happy I found it!
Hi I was interested in your site. But then read the ingredients list. Sorry, but the rest of the world talks in metric measurements. If you want to persist in lbs/oz, then at least put the conversions in. See you later – NOT
Delicious!! We had a few left over tomatoes from our garden and found this recipe. so easy to make and so yummy! Can’t wait for next gardening season when we have many tomatoes. We will use this recipe all summer!
Fresh and quick! I love this and its perfect for summer. I used a splash of Sherry (v sugar) and topped w a drizzle of balsalmic glaze.
Sounds delicious, Christine! Thank you for sharing.
This was so yummy! The whole family loved it, I did use the very best ingredients I could find. A great Parmesan cheese that I grated myself, fresh organic basil, tomatoes from the garden and a really good California extra-virgin olive oil.I followed your suggestion and added pasta water from angel hair pasta I cooked for three minutes. Super fast and delicious. Thank you for a great recipe!
This might seriously be the best pasta ever! So fresh and simple…I will make again and again!❤️
I’m glad you loved it, Kim!
I made this last night for dinner. It is Delicious a great way to taste the fresh tomatoes! Thanks for the inspiration!
I made this and it was really good but when I put the Parmesan cheese in it all balled up into a mass and stuck to the sides and spoon. What could I have done wrong?
I’m sorry to hear that, Lynda! Did you sprinkle it in? Was the pasta still very hot?
Simple and delicious! I had some garden ripe tomatoes and wanted a small batch recipe – this was perfect.
I came across your recipe looking for a fresh tomatoes pasta dish to use my some of my abundance of garden tomatoes. I made it tonight and it was delish! Thank you for posting this oh so simple recipe.
You’re welcome, Diane!
Omg this was absolutely delicious. For sure a keeper.
It’s been a summer of bounty on the tomato front, and this is our go-to fave tomato recipe. Everyone who I serve it to wants the recipe. So thank you for this. It showcases fresh tomatoes and basil like nothing else!
I made this recipe.I added some chopped anchovies, cooked sausage, and a thai chili pepper. It was delicious!:Lots of basil too.
I’ve made this several times now. Can’t believe I hadn’t left a review because it’s so amazingly delicious — and EASY & FAST. Used tomatoes, garlic, and basil from the garden (and yummy olive oil my daughter brought me from Spain). So, so good. You must try it!
Delish!!
I made this using garden fresh tomatoes that were gifted to us. It was absolutely delicious! This is our new go to recipe.
That’s great to hear, Annette! I appreciate your review.
Seriously, I’ve made and tasted dozens of pasta sauces in my life. While I will always remember my Grandma’s ragu with love and happy times, there really is no sauce that has a cleaner, brighter, fresher and or tastier than the sauce you just shared. You’d think “it can’t be that easy,” but it is! Thanks for sharing this one