In addition to his acting chops, Stanley Tucci is a kitchen connoisseur—especially when it comes to Italian food. Over the years, “The Conclave” actor has shared his recipes for pasta casseroles, 20-minute bolognese, and pasta e fagioli on his personal social media—and, based on his show “Searching for Italy,” he’s a pretty credible expert. So when I saw that Tucci posted a TikTok video sharing a sauce that looks as delicious as it is simple, I immediately knew I had to stock up on ingredients to add it to this week’s recipe lineup.
Stanley Tucci’s ‘Really Simple Tomato Sauce’ Recipe
I’ll be the first to admit that I often stock up on produce at the beginning of the week with the best of intentions of incorporating it into carefully curated recipes, only to wind up ordering Taco Bell and leaving a stray zucchini or bag of spinach to wilt in the fridge. It seems even celebrities aren’t immune to that plight, as Tucci begins the video by saying, “I had all these little tomatoes that were starting to get a little old,” so he decided to use them for tomato sauce—an ideal repurposing if I’ve ever seen one.
Tucci starts by cutting the tomatoes, soaking them in water, and then squeezing them in his fists to get all the seeds out. Thanks to Tucci’s hack, “you don’t have the seeds” incorporated into the final product.
Meanwhile, Tucci sweats down Tropea onion, yellow onion, and garlic in a saucepan with a healthy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Once the onions and garlic have cooked down, the actor reaches into the bowl filled with water and grabs the chunks of tomatoes that are sliced and now seedless.
“I’m going to take all of these nice tomatoes and stick them right in there,” Tucci says as he squeezes the excess liquid out of the tomatoes and drops them in the saucepan. “I’m going to cook those down just a bit by themselves,” he adds.
The next ingredient may just be the differentiator between a basic canned sauce and fresh, homemade sauce: Italian tomatoes. Once the fresh tomatoes are cooked down in the saucepan, Tucci adds two cans of “lovely” tomatoes from Campania and continues to let the mixture simmer.
Before letting it cook down more, Tucci says it’s time to “salt it, generously,” while grabbing a hefty pinch of salt and distributing it over the tomato mixture. After the sauce has simmered, Tucci uses an immersion blender to break up the thicker skin of the tomatoes.
“I could strain that, but I’m not going to,” says the actor as he pours the blended mixture back into the saucepan. “Now, this is going in,” he adds, pouring in two additional cans of tomato.
“You can do whatever you want with this sauce,” Tucci begins. “You can add shrimp to it, you can add peas to it, you can sauté a little guanciale and add that to it, and add a little pepperoncino. You can do a million things with it.”
As someone who loves to revamp leftovers—think plain white rice from burritos one night to fried rice the next—I love the idea that this simple sauce is a clean slate. Big batch recipes can become boring after a few meals, but Tucci’s sauce is an excellent base layer for your classic linguine di mare, a meatball sub, or even a homemade pizza.
Tucci tears and adds fresh basil as a finishing touch, another heaping pinch of salt, and then stirs it over the heat while gently smashing up the tomatoes. “That’s it,” he says, “and it’s going to be really good.” And if his past recipes are any indication, I’m almost certain that Tucci is right.
Dining and Cooking