This 3-Ingredient Vegan Marinara Is My New Favorite.
I don’t know if it’s East Coast Italian, Calabrian or something, but my boyfriend’s Italian family doesn’t like butter as cooking oil. This is the olive oil family, a fact I learned when I made this man a spaghetti dinner with Marcella Hazan’s three-way tomato sauce with butter and onions.
He didn’t like it because he could “taste butter,” which is a truly wild reason for me not to love something. But, despite the fact that I disagree with his position of “no oil in marinara sauce” on a philosophical level, I use olive oil if I plan to feed it, because I am good and trust my loved ones. when they say they don’t like something. (He can actually taste the oil if I try to smuggle it in there – it tastes good since he quit smoking.)
Anyway. I was afraid that the lack of oil would doom me to lack of wealth, but with olive oil you can achieve an amazing level of luxury – you just need to use it in sufficient quantities.
I thought I was using a “good” amount of olive oil until Saturday night I made eggplant parma using this ingenious recipe from Food52 . The recipe is perfect – it didn’t change anything. Although I usually do futs and riffs, I decided to entrust this process to the process and was very rewarded. The eggplants were sweet but not soggy, the cheese was melting in the middle and nicely toasted on top, but a simple 3-way sauce threatened to steal the whole show. This is so good.
The sauce sounds too simple to pay attention to. It’s just olive oil, garlic, and two cans of peeled tomatoes. However, this is incredible. The recipe calls for “enough olive oil to cover the pan,” resulting in an astounding amount of olive oil. (This means about half a cup in my saucepan.) Then add three cloves of chopped garlic to this oil – I used two extra cloves because mine was small – and simmer with two cans of peeled San Marzano-style tomatoes. (I bought a cheap grocery store.) Cut it all in half and you have the perfect no-nonsense marinara.
A rich amount of fat and a very reduced amount of tomatoes give the sauce depth and character. This is my new favorite sauce. (I like it even more than the Khazan sauce.) It is sweet, spicy, the taste is complete – nothing more needs to be added. (Of course you can. I won’t be in your kitchen to stop you, but I strongly urge you to try as written before you get down to business.) To do this, you will need:
- Olive oil (about 1/2 cup)
- 3-5 cloves of garlic, depending on the size of your cloves
- 2 28-ounce cans, peeled tomatoes
- About 3 large pinches of salt.
Place a saucepan over medium heat and add enough olive oil to completely cover the bottom of the pan. Add the garlic and cook until sizzling and flavorful, but not lightly browned. Add both jars of tomatoes and a few pinches of salt, then break and chop the tomatoes with a wooden spoon or kitchen scissors. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally and scraping the bottom until the sauce is halved, crushing large chunks of tomatoes as they emerge. Serve with spaghetti, sprinkle with lasagne or use a sauce for a truly delicious eggplant appetizer.
Updated on 10/11/2021 at 1:28 PM ET to clarify the amount of olive oil.