Easy, light and flavorful pomodoro sauce recipe to spice up your dinners.
Immediately following Christmas, we enter into the biggest birthday month of the year, celebrating Ani’s, Adalyn’s and mine within days and weeks of one another. It’s a bit challenging to try to eat healthier with an abundance of birthdays, but I’m making the best of our non-birthday dinners so that I can stay on track {and in my pants}.
I don’t believe in completely changing our diets because it’s a new year or we need to drop a few pounds, but I do lighten up our favorite meals, including this spicy pomodoro sauce. It’s so quick and easy to make and so flavorful that I’m not missing a thing – except an extra pound on my hips.
This pomodoro sauce and pasta is so light in calories, making it the perfect dinner to warm you up this winter while trying to lighten up your menu.
This pomodoro sauce was inspired by one of my local favorites – Katie’s Pizza and Pasta. In fact, rather than making homemade pasta on this occasion, I picked up fresh fiori noodles there. The girls love their floral shape.
I love taking notes on flavors, referring to the menu and asking servers for cues to recreate recipes at home where I’m not subjected to bread staring me down at the table screaming for me to dip it in oil.
Unlike the pomodoro technique there’s no method needed to make this simple pasta dish!
Chris said this spicy pomodoro recipe {which likely has far less oil} is better than the original. I hope you love it, too! If you make one of my recipes, I’d love to hear from you! Please return to rate clicking the stars next to your comment to help other readers.
How to make pomodoro sauce:
Spicy Pomodoro Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoons garlic minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 pound canned whole peeled tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons mascarpone
- 3/4 ounces basil chopped (about 3 Tbsp fresh)
- 1 cup arugula
- salt
- pepper
- parmesan to garnish
- 1 pound pasta
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and prepare pasta according to package instructions.
- In a large saucepan over low heat, warm olive oil, butter, minced garlic and red pepper flakes, stirring to not burn the garlic until butter is melted.
- Add tomatoes and increase temperature to medium heat. Crush tomatoes with a potato masher or wooden spoon and stir occasionally for 10 minutes or until it reaches desired consistency.
- Stir in mascarpone, basil and salt and pepper to taste.
- Remove from heat and stir pasta and arugula. Garnish with parmesan to serve.
Notes
- You can make this sauce ahead of time and keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. Just heat it back up on the stove top before adding it to your cooked pasta.
- This sauce also freezes well. Let the sauce cool to room temperature and transfer to a freezer safe container. It will keep for up to 3 months and can be thawed at room temperature.
- If you prefer your sauce to be thicker, mix 1 tablespoon of water with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and stir it into the sauce towards the end of cooking.
- You can omit the chili flakes if you have an aversion to spicy foods or increase if you like things hot!
Nutrition
This looks so good, but my crazy husband won’t eat cheese. Any suggestions to replace the mascarpone?
I’m from the Stl region–love Katies Pizza–will have to try this:)
It’s so good, isn’t it?
This recipe actually looks amazing and delicious! I’m definitely going to try it out – and maybe even try to do it oil free – yes, I am trying to lose few kilograms haha. Also – it’s the first time ever I see this kind of pasta! I love it and now I’ll be on a mission to find it somewhere. Thank you for the recipe!
With kindness
Good luck! I hope you enjoy this pasta as well…I love how I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything since I’m still getting my pasta fix. Close your eyes when you see the cookie cakes this week.