Salsa di Pomodoro: Simple 4-Ingredient Tomato Sauce
- Eiten
- Nov 20
- 2 min read
This 4-ingredient tomato sauce is the second recipe in my Italian Shōjin Ryōri series, exploring how traditional Italian cooking naturally aligns with the fundamental principles of Buddhist temple cuisine:
☆ Seasonality (shun・旬)
☆ Harmony with the environment (shin-do-fu-ji・身土不二)
☆ No-waste (ichibutsu zentai・一物全体)
You don't have to cook traditional Japanese shōjin ryōri recipes to embrace the principles behind the practice. In fact, the principles are universal truths that have been practiced by ancient cultures for millennia, allowing them to reap the benefits they hold for body, mind, and spirit.
Tomato Sauce: As Many Recipes As There Are Nonnas
This isn't another "quick tomato sauce" recipe with shortcuts and substitutions. This is my grandmother's, my nonna's. That is to say it is the ONLY one. And that is what everyone should and does say about their nonna's salsa di pomodoro. And everyone would be right.
That said—if we are being honest—there are as many recipes as there are nonna's. But there is a core set of ingredients that serves as the foundation for them all: olive oil, garlic, and canned tomatoes. That core is in itself the simplest recipe for pomodoro, and is the one that I learned from watching my nonna every Thursday as she set a pot of meatballs and sausage on to slowly braise while she was at work. With one flourish: she always steeped in a bunch of basil at the end to perfume the sauce.
This traditional approach is almost austere in its simplicity. What makes this sauce significant isn't technical complexity—it's the opposite. This is tomato sauce reduced to its essence, shaped by seasonal availability, regional wisdom, and the foresight to plan for leaner times, preserving the excess harvest bounty for the colder months ahead, wasting not a single tomato.
That transformation from necessity to tradition, from scarcity to sufficiency, runs parallel to the philosophy underlying shōjin ryōri: taking what is available seasonally within a time and place and realizing its full potential.
1
Storage
The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. If you make a large batch and need to store it for longer you can freeze it for up to 30 days.
Notes
1
INFUSING THE OIL. Warm the olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Crush the garlic cloves with the back of a knife or the palm of your hand, then add to the hot oil. Lightly cook the garlic for one minute to infuse the oil with the aroma of the garlic.
2
COOKING THE TOMATOES. Pour in the tomatoes and bring the pot to a simmer. Add a small amount of water to the tomato cans—and any containers that you may have used to weigh the tomatoes—and pour that water into the pot as well, so that nothing is wasted. As the pot comes to a simmer, use a spoon to gently crush the tomatoes. Increase the heat to bring the sauce to a boil, then reduce the heat to a bare simmer, and continue to cook the sauce for 45 minutes to an hour.
3
FINISHING THE SAUCE. About 10-15 minutes before the time is up, rub the basil between your fingers to release some of the oil from the leaves and add it to the pot to perfume the sauce. When the sauce is finished, cool it completely and reserve.
Instructions
800 grams Canned tomatoes
15 grams Olive oil
10 grams Garlic cloves
7 grams Fresh basil
Salsa di Pomodoro: Simple 4-Ingredient Tomato Sauce
Eiten
Servings :
Varies
Calories:
Varies
Prep Time
5 min
Active Cook Time
10 min
Passive Cook Time
45 min
Total Time
60 min
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