This Easy Tomato Cream Sauce takes less than 10 minutes to prepare and is a great alternative to store-bought sauce. Toss with your favorite cooked pasta for a quick and easy meal!
I was not feeling my usual excitement around cooking the day I came up with this recipe. That changed quickly after this sauce came to the rescue.
I had a package of cheese tortellini from Costco in my fridge and decided I’d take the easy way out and just toss it with some store bought marinara and call it a day. Great idea, right? My plans were quickly dashed as I peered into my pantry and there was no marinara sauce to be found.
This Easy Tomato Cream Sauce is one of those pantry staple recipes that ends up being a lifesaver time and time again. I always have fresh or dry pasta on hand and I regularly stock all of the rest of the ingredients. That makes this recipe a great fallback choice when you need something quick and satisfying.
How to Make Easy Tomato Cream Sauce
- Grab a 12-inch skillet, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and place it over medium heat. Add some diced onion and garlic, and cook, stirring, for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Add a can of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, Italian Seasoning, basil, sugar, salt, and black pepper and stir well to combine. Want to make it spicy? Add a little (or a lot!) of crushed red pepper.
- Add a little heavy cream and finely grated Parmesan and cook for another minute or two until the sauce is warmed through and bubbly.
And that my friends, is it! Luscious, velvety, flavorful Tomato Cream Sauce.
How to Serve Tomato Cream Sauce
Cook up your pasta of choice, add the sauce, and toss to combine. Add some fresh basil if you’ve got any on hand and garnish the finished dish with additional Parmesan.
- Toss with cheese tortellini or any cooked pasta you love
- Layer it into lasagna
- Toss it with cooked meatballs (like these Italian Turkey Meatballs) for a delicious spin on spaghetti and meatballs
- Load saucy meatballs and provolone cheese on toasted hoagie rolls for an easy meatball sub
- Use as substitute for marinara sauce in any recipe (like Lazy Lasagna Casserole, Skillet Chicken Parmesan, or Chicken Pesto Lasagna Rollups
A simple salad and a loaf of bread is all you need to round out this meatless meal. And, a glass of red wine wouldn’t hurt the situation one bit.
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Easy Tomato Cream Sauce
Video
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ cup diced sweet yellow onion
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes
- 15 ounce can tomato sauce
- ½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ½ teaspoon dried basil
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper, or to taste (optional)
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup finely shredded Parmesan, plus more for serving
- fresh basil, for serving (optional)
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a 12-inch saute pan over MEDIUM-LOW heat. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 to 3 minutes, or until onion has softened and is translucent. Add the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, Italian Seasoning, basil, sugar, salt, crushed red pepper (if using) and black pepper and stir well to combine. Add cream and Parmesan and cook until warmed through and bubbly, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Toss with the cooked pasta of your choice and garnish with basil, if desired.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated using generic ingredients, and is an estimate not a guarantee. For more accurate results, please refer to the labels on your ingredients at home.
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Been using this recipe for years for my chicken penne pasta. Brown sugar other seasonings really make the sauce pop
How many cups does this recipe make so that I know how much pasta I would need to make. Our family enjoys pasta more on the saucy side. Makes dinner planning easier knowing portion sizes. Thanks!
Hi Stephanie. The recipe should yield close to 5 cups of sauce which is plenty for a pound of pasta. Hope this helps!
So delicious and easy! I’ve already added this to my recipe box it’s that’s good. Thank you!!! Have you tried freezing this with the cream added? Or do you recommend freezing without the cream? Either way it’s a winner!
I haven’t tried freezing it but I think it would do okay with this ratio of cream. So happy you enjoyed it and thanks so much for your comment. 🙂
This recipe was quick and delicious!
I just made this today and it is fantastic.
I used tomatoes from my garden. After in blanched the tomatoes I pureed them and added a jar of tomato sauce that I had canned. I used 5 cloves of garlic and kept the rest of the recipe as written. Everyone needs to try it, I enjoyed how quick it was to make. Thank you for the recipe. It is now going into my recipe box.
Sounds wonderful! Thanks, Sherry. 🙂
This sauce is delicious, and easy to alter if desired. The tomatoes from my garden were staring menacingly at me about to go bad, so I diced about 6-8 medium sized ‘maters instead of canned. I also used closer to a cup of diced onion, and being Italian, one teaspoon of garlic definitely isn’t enough so I used closer to six large cloves 😆 I also opted to omit the dried basil, and instead chopped 10-11 large fresh basil leaves from my garden. I also used more Italian seasoning, salt and pepper than the recipe called for…I digress, you should basically just season it to your taste lol, but it’s a great easy base for someone like me who’s never made it before. Thank you!!