Almost as soon as we posted the video for Marcella Hazan’s famous recipe for Butter, Tomato and Onion pasta sauce, the comments started rolling in. And though her sauce was originally published years ago in her Essentials of Italian Cooking, and has been widely adored in the years since, its radical simplicity still had the power to shock.
Commenter Linda F. said, “no…geez. Butter in sauce? And don’t say it helps it stick to the pasta. That’s just stupid to do. Waste of onions too. Mince em up and sweat them with some garlic.”
Steve J. wrote, “I lived in Naples Italy for three years ..this is definitely not happening in my kitchen.. .my sauce takes time and love and I would never waste product like the onion… My sauce has great mouth feel as well.
And Violet R. chimed in, “Ugh!!! Really? That looks terrible. What is that, the British version of pasta sauce?? Salt? Pepper? Garlic? Basil? Hot pepper flakes? Sautee your onions to limit the amount of acid released into an already acidic sauce.”
And it’s true—Marcella Hazan’s sauce just doesn’t make sense. The sauce calls for more than a half-stick of butter instead of the typical spoonful of olive oil. That butter isn’t even melted. It’s just tossed unceremoniously into a pot, along with a defiantly raw halved onion and a can’s worth of whole tomatoes. A dash of salt and a simmer is the only additional procedure. It reads like a very bad idea.
It’s more than just minimalist. For a legendary teacher who excelled at explaining the act of making soffrito, the sauteed aromatic base of onions and other vegetables that forms the flavor foundation of most Italian recipes, the recipe is downright ironic.
It just shouldn’t work. But it does.
Photo by Chelsea Kyle
But Marcella’s recipe also had its defenders—the folks who trusted Marcella’s taste and actually cooked the recipe. Those home cooks witnessed the recipe’s remarkable magic, the butter melting into the sauce and balancing out the acidity of the unsauteed onion, the onion simmering its mild sweetness into the sauce without having to compete with oregano, chile, or basil.