A wonderful and easy to prepare pasta sauce that just bursts with layers of great tomato flavor. The recipe starts with an aromatic saute of onions, prosciutto, red pepper flakes and garlic. It then adds tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes, and wine along with crushed tomatoes to create a sauce with great depth of flavor. Once the sauce has thickened, heavy cream, a bit of raw crushed tomatoes, a splash of wine and fresh chopped basil are added to finish the flavorful sauce. This isn't the quickest dish. Start to finish takes about an hour, and its multi-step processes require you to be in the kitchen or nearby for most of the cooking time. But it's amazing taste makes it well worth the time and effort spent.
Category: Side Dish
Cuisine: Italian
3 tablespoons Unsalted butter
1 ounce prosciutto minced
3/4 cup onion finely diced
1 Bay leaf
1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
Sea salt
2 large cloves garlic minced or pressed through a garlic press
2 tablespoons Tomato paste
2 ounces oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes drained, rinsed, patted dry, and coarsely chopped
1/4 cup dry white wine or vermouth divided, plus 2 tbsp
2 1/4 cups crushed tomatoes divided (I prefer organic tomatoes, either bottled or canned)
1 pound pasta (such as ziti, penne, fusilli, or gemelli)
1/2 cup Heavy cream
Fresh ground black pepper
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves chopped
Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano cheese freshly grated - for serving
This is definitely one of the best pasta dishes ever!!
Johnson5122Very tasty!
Valerie411Wonderful! Can't wait to try it with summer sweet and fresh tomatoes.
kjekholmWe made this recipe with a twist. We were looking for something to consume the many home grown tomatoes we had been given and this recipe, doubled for 8 people certainly did that. We substituted half teaspoon of sambal alek for the red pepper flakes - honestly, we could have tripled that amount as the chilli was lost in the huge quantity of tomatoes and other ingredients. We also deleted the sun dried tomatoes which we thought we had but it turned out to be a jar of residual sun dried tomato liquid with no solids. It was too late to go to the shops. We swapped bacon for prosuitto, and considering the amount of fat in the bacon we reduced the butter by half - there was still plenty of fat in the recipe especially after the cream. The hero of the meal was the sauce. One of the best pasta sauces we have ever made - amply demonstrated by the tomato sauce all over the cooking areas of the kitchen. We will enjoy again - most of it is frozen for another day.
lindaward1This was a solid 4 stars and I forgot to add the cream at the end. I can hardly wait to get it right and add the extra star! The combination of the prosciutto and sun dried tomatoes gave it a unique taste to differentiate from a standard tomato sauce.
CookerDude
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