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When you’re looking for a quick and comforting tomato-y, garlicky pasta, this ultimate umami bomb tomato sauce will hit all the right notes.

Can you believe November is almost over? There’s only a week of the month left and then it’ll be December. Where did 2019 go?! Is this what they mean when they say that time passes by faster and faster the older you get? The wait til December seemed so endless as a kid, now I’m like, holiday music already? But, let’s be honest here, I’ve been blasting “All I Want for Christmas is You” on repeat for the last month. I’m still not sick of it.

How is your Thanksgiving planning going? We’re having a quiet one here (maybe not even at all) because we’re doing a little bit of a kitchen renovation – nothing crazy, just having some extra shelves put in because Ikea had that kitchen event and Mike was like, let’s treat ourselves to some shelves. Ikea is cheap and all, but man, do those shelves add up…this is our little Christmas gift to ourselves (mainly me though). The kitchen’s been out of commission for a little while now but soon we’ll get it back!

Before we ripped out our range hood I made a quick and easy tomato sauce to eat with pasta, because noodles. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it forever, noodles are my ultimate comfort food. I just love love love noodles, and especially pasta, when I put it in a bowl. There’s something extra comforting about eating pasta out of a bowl that I can hold in my hands. It’s because it reminds me of being a kid and having after school snacks on the couch, cradling and spooning bowls of noodles.

This is probably the quickest and most amped up tomato sauce that you can make in under 30 minutes. It uses all pantry ingredients and it’s pretty much the best. Mike and I love spiking our pasta sauces with soy for an extra bit of oomph and umami. It really heightens the umami, especially when you’re making a tomato based sauce as I did here. It really highlights the tomatoes flavor and adds a nice underlying layer of savory.

This sauce is as simple as simple can be: start off by melting a generous amount of butter and slowly cooking some crushed garlic. The low heat infuses the butter with all the garlicky goodness and softens everything up. To that you add whatever small can of tomatoes you have in your pantry. I used canned cherry tomatoes but you can use crushed or whole, whatever works. Stir in a bit of soy and let everything simmer. The butter will emulsify into the sauce, the tomatoes will break up and cook down (use a wooden spoon to break up gently if you need to) and everything will turn into the coziest sauce. Taste, adjust the seasoning and you’re ready to go.

From there, you just need to cook your favorite pasta shape – it this case, I went with the infinitely cute and curly campanelle, which is perfect for catching sauce. I like to cook the pasta 1-2 minutes shy of al dente then finish cooking in the sauce. It helps the sauce infuse the pasta even more which means extra flavor. Finish everything off with a generous dusting of cheese and, if you have it, furikake! It sounds like a funny thing to top your pasta with, but furikake is essentially savory Japanese crunchies that taste good on EVERYTHING.

Seriously comforting, seriously easy.
Happy noodling!
xoxo steph

The Ultimate Umami Bomb 4 Ingredient Tomato Sauce

All you need are 4 pantry ingredients for this quick and comforting tomato-y, garlicky pasta, this ultimate umami bomb tomato sauce.

Serves 2

4.43 from 7 votes

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 25 minutes mins

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp butter
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 14 oz canned tomatoes
• 1 tbsp soy sauce see notes
• 8 ounces pasta of choice I used campanelle

Instructions

• Melt the butter in a medium sized pot over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and stir, cooking, until soft but not brown, 1-2 minutes.
  
• Add the canned tomatoes and soy sauce to the pot and bring to a gentle boil then turn down the heat to simmer over medium-low, reducing the sauce for 15-20 minutes, stirring and breaking up the tomatoes as needed. Taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
  
• When the sauce is almost finished, cook the pasta according to the package, then drain well and toss with the pasta sauce. Enjoy topped with grated parmesan and furikake for some extra umami if desired.
  

Notes

I used sweet soy sauce which added an extra bit of caramel sweetness. If you don’t have any in your pantry, you can add 1-2 teaspoons of sugar to the sauce, if desired.