This tomato butter pasta is such a simple recipe, but it always hits the spot!
This is one of those no-fuss pasta recipes that are just too good not to try. It’s no fuss or frills, but there’s something about it that’s so delicious. Follow me…
Grated Tomato Pasta Sauce
One of the key steps in this recipe is grating the tomatoes to form the sauce.
Why grate the tomatoes?
To be honest the grating of tomatoes is mostly about the ability to form a sauce using fresh tomatoes. Grating the tomatoes leaves you with the perfect texture for a sauce, and, you get the bonus of not needing to peel the tomatoes – the grater does it for you! Just discard the skin you get to it.
What kind of tomatoes to use?
The tomatoes make up a big bulk of the sauce, so try and get some nice ripe good quality tomatoes. Here I’ve used plum tomatoes which work perfectly, so do grab them if you can.
Process shots: weigh tomatoes (photo 1), begin grating on box grater (photo 2), carefully grate up until the point only the skin is left (photo 3), discard skin (photo 4).
Tomato Butter Pasta Sauce
Creating an emulsion
The tomatoes are obviously going to be fairly watery, and to form the sauce we need to blend them with the butter. You will form an emulsion by just simmering and stirring the two of them, but to help along you’ll want to toss in some starchy pasta water. The starch molecules will help create a glossy, ever-so-slightly creamy sauce. Just pour this in as needed after adding the pasta.
Extra goodies
Alongside the butter and tomatoes, I love frying off some garlic and chilli flakes, just for a gorgeous base flavour. I also love tossing in some fresh basil and parmesan alongside the pasta, just to really lift the whole dish.
Process shots: melt butter (photo 1), fry garlic and chilli flakes (photo 2), add tomatoes and seasoning (photo 3), toss in cooked pasta (photo 4), toss in basil (photo 5), toss in parmesan (photo 6).
Serving Tomato Butter Pasta
Once I’ve tossed in the parmesan, I love stirring in one final knob of butter, just to give the pasta a gorgeously glossy, buttery texture to finish. From there, just serve up with any leftover basil/parmesan and tuck in! I usually whip this up for a no-fuss and relatively quickly Lunch.
Alrighty, let’s tuck into the full recipe for this tomato butter pasta shall we?!
How to make Tomato Butter Pasta (Full Recipe & Video)
Tomato Butter Pasta
Equipment
- Large Pan & Wooden Spoon
- Large Pot & Tongs
- Box Grater & Bowl
- Fine Cheese Grater
Ingredients
- 9oz / 250g Spaghetti, or other long cut pasta
- 1lb / 500g Tomatoes (see notes)
- 4 tbsp / 2oz / 60g Butter
- 1/3 cup / 1oz / 30g freshly grated Parmesan
- 2 cloves of Garlic, finely diced
- handful of Fresh Basil, finely diced
- pinch of Chilli Flakes, to taste
- Salt & Pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Use a box grater to grate each tomato into a bowl. Discard the skin when you get to it.
- Melt 3.5 tbsp butter in a large pan over medium heat (save the remaining 1/2 tbsp butter for later). Add in garlic & chilli flakes and fry for a couple of minutes. Pour in the tomatoes, generously season with salt & pepper and give it a good stir.
- Keep on a gentle simmer and occasionally stir for 15mins, or until sauce begins to thicken and emulsify with the butter.
- Meanwhile, place the pasta in heavily salted water and cook until al dente.
- Use tongs to transfer the pasta straight into the pan and toss to combine with the sauce. Toss in basil, then toss in parmesan, adding starchy pasta water from the pot to thin out the sauce as needed. If you go overboard with the pasta water, just continue to simmer & toss the pasta in the sauce until it thickens and clings around the pasta.
- Add in the final 1/2 tbsp butter and toss until melted. Check for seasoning and adjust accordingly, then serve up with any extra basil/parmesan and enjoy!
Video
Notes
Your Private Notes:
Nutrition
Looking for more?
You’ll find plenty more delicious comfort food like this in my Debut Cookbook ‘Comfy’
For more similar recipes check out these beauties:
Tomato Pasta Recipes
- Pasta Pomodoro
- Creamy Tomato Pasta
- Tomato Mushroom Pasta
- Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Pasta
- Tomato Spinach Pasta
If you loved this Tomato Butter Pasta Recipe then be sure to Pin it for later! Already made it or got a question? Give me a shout in the comments and pick up your free ecookbook along the way!
This was really good. I didn’t have fresh tomatoes so I used canned whole peeled tomatoes and it was delicious! I will make this often. Thanks for the recipe
Thanks so much for the review, Sandy! 🙂 C.
This is my favorite stay at home mom recipe for myself! Cheap, quick, and easy!
Thanks so much for the review, Allison 🙂 C.
Grating the tomatoes is simple and makes them SO nice for sauce… but discarding the skin of a fresh plum tomato is silly.EAT the skins while you cook, for crying out loud! It’s not like you’ve got a big bowl of them left over! 🙂
You can certainly eat the skins if you’d like 🙂 C.
I think this is the best pasta I have ever eaten. I will make this when I want to impress guests, or when I need a dinner that will make me experience food joy. Simple, but fantastic. 10/10
So pleased to hear, Lauryn! Thanks so much for the review 🙂 C.
Love this recipe, a big hit. Given the season, good, fresh tomatoes are hard to come by, so I used canned San Marzano tomatoes, that I crushed by hand….hey have an amazing flavor. Turned out amazing.
Thanks so much for the review, David! Great to hear the recipe went down well 🙂 C.
Love it! Love it! Love it!
Thanks for the review, Lizzy! 🙂 C.
I made this again as the recipe is written, and WOW!!! It was amazing before, but this is so flavorful and even better than I could imagine! I made it for friends, and they’re still raving about it! Thank you!!
Thanks so much for the review, Margie! 🙂 C.
So easy and the taste is fantastic! I love that you use fresh tomatoes. I use my vitamix to blend the whole tomatoes, saves time. Apart from that, I keep to the recipe.
Thanks so much for the review, Renée 🙂 C.
This was amazing, and I had almost none of the right ingredients! I only had garlic, noodles, butter, and chili flakes! I browned the garlic and chili flakes in the butter while the noodles were cooking and added Cento’s Passata (not the whole jar). I didn’t have fresh basil so did. A dash of Italian seasoning and used fresh mozzarella since I didn’t have parmesan. This was amazing…I cannot wait to make it with all the correct ingredients! It’s so tasty! Basil would be way better though! Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe!
So pleased to hear it went down well with the subs! Thanks for popping back for a review, Margie 🙂 C.
Could I not just use some good quality canned crushed tomatoes?
You could yes, I state why I use fresh tomatoes in the blog post 🙂 C.