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 this Versatile 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.
Easy Tomato Cream Sauce
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.
Video
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.
I have been looking for a vodka sauce recipe. I tried 3 of them that were just “eh”. This recipe was soooooo good. It was super easy to make, took hardly any time at all and was absolutely delicious. Thank you for sharing this recipe with us. 🙂
Made it tonight. was so easy and had really great taste. It is what you would get in any upscale restaurant
Fantastic! Thanks, Curt. 🙂
Does anyone know if this can be frozen for future use?
Typically cream sauces don’t fare well when frozen, however, since this sauce is not solely made from cream I think it would work well. Let me know if you try it!
I mixed with grilled Italian seasoned chicken and pasta- AMAZING!
I made this recipe to top fried cheese ravioli and Italian meatballs….very delicious. I would highly recommend using fresh basil for the sauce. I also added some fresh baby spinach.
Yum to the fresh basil and baby spinach! Thanks, Cathy. 🙂
Just what I was looking for to use on some lobster ravioli. Super easy and so delicious!
Maybe Maddy might have see the crushed red pepper instead of the crushed tomatoes. Very easy to do.
I thought it was good but needed more a little more flavor. It might be better for me with the tomato paste instead of the sauce or both sauce and paste.
I only had Ragu OldWorld Sauce in my pantry. No canned tomatoes. So I made this recipe with the Ragu. I just left out the salt and sugar. Came out delish. Had this over cheese ravioli. Thank you. Will definitely make this again.
Served this over caulifower rice with diced chicken. Yummy low carb meal. Had snow peas and cinnamon roasted carrots on the side. Great sauce.
I love that you served this over cauliflower rice! Great idea. Thanks, Melinda 🙂
I like using different cans of rotel’s instead of the diced tomatoes…and I drain the can before adding. Mild, original, chipotle, hot or serrano. Depending on how much heat I want at the time.
would’ve liked this recipe but it says two different kinds of tomatoes… diced in the ingredients then in the steps it says crushed???
I’m not sure where you are seeing crushed? There are no crushed tomatoes in the recipe. Diced tomatoes and tomato sauce are listed in the ingredient list and in the instructions.
So very wasy to make. Only had 8oz can tomato sauce used that and one can tomato paste. This recipe is delicious. A keeper!