If you are an Ina Garten fan, chances are you've made her pasta alla vecchio bettola from her cookbook Foolproof. She likens the recipe to classic penne alla vodka "but with so much more flavor."
If you are unfamiliar with the recipe, what distinguishes it from other tomato sauce recipes is the method: the sauce roasts in the oven in a covered pan for 1.5 hours, during which time the liquids reduce and the flavors concentrate, resulting in a sweet-spicy mixture needing little more than a splash of cream to balance it out.
About a year ago, I simplified Ina's original recipe, which calls for draining two 28-oz cans of peeled tomatoes, and saving the juice to use for a future use. This step is not hard by any means, but if I'm being honest, the juice not once got used for a future use — it rather died in my freezer.
I now always skip the draining step and simply roast the tomatoes, juice and all, and it's just as delicious as ever. This is a sauce my whole family loves, and about this time of year every year — when fresh tomato season feels many many moons away — I start making it often.
Get the recipe and watch the video here:
| Ina Garten's Vodka Sauce |
10 Favorite Recipes Made with Canned Tomatoes
Go-To Quick Tomato Sauce
Inspired by a lesser-known Marcella Hazan tomato sauce recipe, this one calls for olive oil, onions, a few cloves of garlic, a little white wine (or vodka), some chopped fresh basil, and a pinch of crushed red pepper flakes. After about 15 minutes of simmering, it's done. And it's delicious.
Pantry Tomato Soup
This pantry tomato soup is a staple all winter long. As you can imagine, it's great aside grilled cheese sandwiches.
Farro Risotto with Kale & Feta
A favorite Yotam Ottolenghi recipe, this one simmers for about an hour, but the effort is minimal and the result — a super tasty, one-pot wonder — is well worth the time.
Spicy Chickpeas with Tomatoes and Kale
From Jenny Rosenstrach's The Weekday Vegetarians, these spicy chickpeas remind me of the chana masala from my favorite local Indian restaurant, and the addition of kale makes it a meal.
One-Pot Sherry Vinegar Chicken
This one-pan chicken with sherry vinegar sauce emerges with beautifully golden and crisp skin, meat falling off the bone, a plentiful sauce pooling all around. The best part? There's no need to brown the chicken. Simply make the simple sauce, add the chicken, and chuck it in the oven. About 45 minutes later, dinner will be done!
Butter-Roasted Tomato Sauce
Like Ina's vodka sauce recipe, this one calls for roasting canned tomatoes with butter and anchovies and lots of garlic, which caramelize and sweeten in the oven. Unlike Ina's sauce, this one roasts uncovered, so it takes less time, about 40 minutes before it becomes jammy and concentrated and ready to be puréed.
Winter Enchilada Sauce
This sauce, made with canned tomatoes, chipotle in adobo sauce, and broiled onions and garlic comes together in about 15 minutes. I love using it in this lasagna-style enchilada "casserole":
Leblebi (North African Chickpea Stew)
Made with canned or cooked-from-scratch chickpeas, crushed tomatoes, onions, garlic, and spices, this is a winter favorite. If you're up for it, serve it with homemade harissa.
Instant Pot Chicken Tinga
This recipe calls for crushed tomatoes and chipotles in adobo. If you don't have an Instant Pot, you can make it stovetop.
Pantry Puttanesca
The hardest part about making this sauce is smashing a few cloves of garlic and coarsely chopping a half cup of olives. The rest comes from pantry staples: plum tomatoes, anchovies (a whole tin!), capers (a whole jar!).
After an hour of simmering, the plum tomatoes break down, the anchovies dissolve, the cloves of garlic melt. The sauce can certainly be made ahead and the pasta cooked just before dinner, which makes for easy preparations at the dinner hour.
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