Get it? like that LMFAO song?
Ok cool good talk. It’s stuck in my head so I needed to make you also feel my pain.
Want the easiest red-sauce recipe ever? Cuz I have it for you. It’s 5 ingredients, based on Alton Brown’s sauce from his Chicken Parmesan recipe but I changed it slightly. Most notably, his recipe includes a Parmesan rind, but I find that adding it means you have to babysit the sauce and make sure any melting residual cheese isn’t sticking and burning the bottom of the pan. Without that ingredient you can basically set it and forget it, and stir like once an hour. Also I 9.5/10 forget to buy it when I go to the store for tomatoes, but we’ll go with the sticky reason.
Ingredients:
- 4 28oz cans peeled whole San Marzano tomatoes, drained (SM’s can be hard to find. if you’re SOL just use regular peeled whole tomatoes. It’s really important to drain them. Why? because they’re full of liquid that comes out as you break them apart and you don’t need the extra liquid they are packed in. It will double the cook time of this sauce)
- 1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and smashed
- 1 tin of anchovies, drained
- 1/2 C olive oil
- pinch of red pepper flakes. Side note: I found THE BEST red pepper flakes ever here
Instructions:
- in a big pot, heat the oil over medium (one with tall sides is good, reduces the splatter factor when the sauce is simmering)
- add smashed garlic and saute a minute or two
- add anchovies and break apart the fillets until they’re basically dissolved – these are kind of sticky initially, scrape while you’re stirring so they don’t glue themselves to the bottom of the pot
- add tomatoes, break them up with a spoon in the pot
- add red pepper flakes
- stir stir stir to combine
- simmer uncovered (this is important, you want the extra liquid to evaporate) over low heat for several hours. No really, I let it go for 3 or 4 until the liquid has reduced and what’s left is a nice thick, chunky sauce
- use it on everything
Eva, my 4.5 yr old kiddo LOVES this sauce. Which is shout it from the rooftop type of accomplishment.
You know when you put sauce on your spaghetti and it just slides off and you end up with a bunch of sauce on the bottom of your plate but not coating the pasta? Yeah, that doesn’t happen with this sauce. It’s also great for things like meatball subs because it doesn’t soak the bread to the point where it’s useless. Sometimes I eat spoonfuls of it plain. We make this amount then freeze it in small portions so we can thaw just what we need to avoid freeze, thaw, re-freeze, thaw, rinse, repeat.
Side note: to check and see if your tomatoes are authentic San Marzano and not impostors, look for the seal:
That’s pretty much all I got for this one. A couple folks asked me for the recipe this week and it’s easier to link them to something than re-type it. I am le tired. My neck still hurts. I’m pretty sure I’m hangry now… Hasta la vista, baby.
Cooking While Caffeinated 