Pasta with homemade tomato sauce and ricotta

4.80 from 5 votes

A delicious Italian homemade tomato sauce and creamed fresh ricotta make this simple dish one you'll want to make time and again.

Prep Time10

Cook Time20

Total Time30

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Keyword: pasta, ricotta, sugo, tomato sauce

Servings:

Calories: 587kcal

Author: Jacqui

Peel the garlic and chop the basil
Wash the tomatoes and cut them in half. If you want, you can blanch the tomatoes and peel them first or cook them with all the peel. I usually cook small tomatoes with the peel.
Put a pot of water onto boil for the pasta. Add salt once it starts to boil and bring to the boil again.
Heat the olive oil in a frying pan or skillet, add the cloves of garlic.
As soon as the garlic begins to brown slightly, add the chopped tomatoes, a few leaves of basil and a pinch of salt. Let the sauce simmer for about 15 minutes.
Cook the pasta slightly less than al dente according to the instructions on the packet.
While the pasta is cooking, put the ricotta in a bowl, add a couple of tablespoons of the pasta cooking water and cream with a fork until you have a creamy consistency.
When the pasta is ready, save a cup of the water and drain it. Add the pasta to the pan with the tomato sauce and mix the sauce and pasta together well. Remove the garlic cloves if you prefer.
Finish cooking the pasta in the sauce for a minute or 2 on a low heat, adding some of the pasta cooking water if necessary.
When cooked, remove the pasta from the heat and add some chopped fresh basil.
You can add the ricotta to the pasta and mix well or you can put it in the bottom of the pasta bowls and put the pasta and tomato sauce on top (this is what I did!) Serve with some more fresh basil, black pepper and grated parmesan if required.

I used Sicilian spaccatelle for this recipe but you can use almost any pasta type. Spaghetti or penne are traditional choices.

You can serve this dish without the ricotta, which is how many Italians often eat it!