The One Ingredient I Never Skip When Making Spaghetti Sauce
I love a good red sauce, and I’m not picky about it — it can be a simple marinara or a slow-cooked ragù. I’ve cooked tomato sauce many different ways, and often will forgo a recipe altogether in favor of using the spices, herbs, and aromatics I have on hand to build a good sauce. The one thing I always add at the end, though — no matter what else has gone into the pot — is a bit of butter.
Why I Always Finish Tomato Sauce with Butter
There are a few options for getting the distinct flavor of butter into a tomato sauce. I start almost every sauce I make with a few tablespoons of olive oil, which I use to cook the aromatics before adding the tomatoes. While I could use butter for this step, it has a pretty low smoke point and can easily burn, so olive oil feels like the better choice.
The other option is to go the Marcella Hazan route and add butter directly to the sauce. This undeniably adds ample buttery flavor, but I find that cooking the butter with the sauce results in its flavor melding with everything else. It kind of fades into the background as the whole sauce becomes one delicious harmony. I want the butter to stand out as its own note.
That’s why I always finish my sauce with a few tablespoons of butter. Butter has a rich and creamy, but delicate flavor. Stirring it in at the end of cooking, either right before or along with the pasta, lets it shine. It gives the sauce a silky texture that clings satisfyingly to pasta. The butter lends a richness to the sauce, and the finished dish overall, that I find you can’t really mimic when you add butter at any other stage. Give it a try the next time you’re making Sunday sauce. You won’t be sorry.
Tomato Sauce Recipes to Try Finishing with Butter
This post originally appeared on The Kitchn. See it there: Add a Few Tablespoons of This to Spaghetti Sauce for the “Best Flavor Ever” (It’s Such a Game-Changer)
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