Onion Sauce for Capellini Pasta

Name: Onion Sauce for Capellini Pasta with Tomato
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Cuisine: Italian cuisine
Ingredients: Capellini pasta 250 g; Water for cooking the pasta 2.5 l; Salt for cooking the pasta 18 g; Onion 3-4; Ripe tomatoes 3-4 (or 1 cup of tomato pulp or homemade tomato juice); Olive oil 2 tbsp; Sugar scant tsp; Dried Mediterranean herb mix 0.5 tsp; Ground nutmeg a pinch; Salt, black pepper to taste; Fresh herbs for serving sprig

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30 mins

This quick onion sauce for long Italian pasta is surely one of the simplest and most accessible sauces. Apart from spices and oil, the dish needs just three ingredients: pasta, onion and tomato (pulp, fresh tomatoes or homemade tomato juice). The onion and tomato sauce is made while the pasta cooks.

Sauces, or gravies as they are also called, are liquid or fairly thick additions to all kinds of dishes. In most cases sauces make dishes juicy, add nutritional value and improve the look. Sauces usually contain a lot of different spices, which noticeably improves the flavor of the main part of the dish.

Simple sauces, or rather foods used as sauces, are very common. In my opinion, the best sauce for syrniki (fried cottage cheese pancakes) is homemade sour cream or condensed milk. For potato and corn chips, it’s salsa or guacamole made from avocado, lime, chili and cilantro. And tasty deruny (potato pancakes) with sour cream? Simply indescribable!

There is a fairly clear classification of sauces. Back in the 19th century, the French chefs Carême and Escoffier worked out certain standards for sauces, which are still used and expanded today. Sauces are divided into mother (basic) sauces and derivatives. The names everyone knows, espagnole, velouté, béchamel and hollandaise, plus the later additions of tomato sauce and mayonnaise, are nothing other than the mother sauces. All the other sauces are made from the basic ones by adding various ingredients.

A simple onion sauce is a great addition to long, thin pasta such as capellini and spaghetti. Surprisingly, capellini made from coarse-ground flour, despite being less than 1 mm thick, doesn’t overcook at all and holds its shape perfectly. Capellini cook in just 3 minutes, are great for soups and are usually served with light sauces. Pasta with chicken and tomato works best with capellini, giving you a delicate dish that everybody likes.

More with tomatoes and pasta

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Ingredients

2 servings

For the pasta
Capellini pasta 250 g
Water for cooking the pasta 2.5 l
Salt for cooking the pasta 18 g
For the sauce
Onion 3-4
Ripe tomatoes 3-4 (or 1 cup of tomato pulp or homemade tomato juice)
Olive oil 2 tbsp
Sugar scant tsp
Dried Mediterranean herb mix 0.5 tsp
Ground nutmeg a pinch
Salt, black pepper to taste
Fresh herbs for serving sprig

Step-by-step recipe

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Tomato

This light onion sauce is quick and easy to make. The base of the sauce is tomato. Depending on the season, it can be any kind of tomato. Ripe fresh tomatoes are ideal, of course.
Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and peel off the skin.
Remove the seeds and puree the flesh with a blender. 1 cup of pulp is enough.
If it’s not tomato season, canned tomato pulp works well too; it also needs to be pureed. Or, which is perfectly fine, use 1 full cup of homemade tomato juice made in the summer. For obvious reasons, store-bought tomato juice and tomato paste are not a good idea.
If you want a sauce with a single onion, garlic and cherry tomatoes, with parsley at serving, here is a separate recipe: pasta with tomato sauce made from fresh tomatoes.

Pasta

Capellini, very thin and surprisingly “sturdy”, goes perfectly with tomato, and onion sauce for this pasta is practically ideal. The onion sauce and the pasta are cooked separately, so it’s worth timing things so that the sauce and the pasta are ready at the same time.
Bring 2.5 l of water to a boil and add salt: 18 g of salt, about 7 g per 1 l of water.
Cook the capellini in the salted water for the time given on the package, usually about 3 minutes; it’s a very “quick” pasta. This guarantees an al dente texture.

Onion sauce

The onion, or common onion, is one of the most important vegetables in cooking, though it is rarely used on its own. In almost all dishes, onion is used as an addition. Pork with onion is meat fried with sliced onion, and as it cooks the onion turns into a tasty, spicy sauce.
Peel the onion, remove the root end and the green parts inside; onions often start to sprout slightly.
Cut the onion into thick strips.
In a saucepan over medium heat, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil and let it warm up for 2-3 minutes so that the smell typical of natural olive oil goes away.
Fry the sliced onion in the olive oil, stirring often, until it blushes and takes on a pleasant golden color.
Reduce the heat and add your chosen tomato: pureed tomato pulp or homemade tomato juice. If the tomato is too thick, you can add a little boiling water.
Once the tomato comes to a boil, add salt and black pepper to taste, a scant teaspoon of sugar (4 g), a pinch of ground nutmeg and 0.5 tsp of dried herbs typical of Italian and Mediterranean cuisine.
Such mixes are sold in any store and contain no “helpful” additives.
Cover the saucepan with a lid and simmer the onion and tomato sauce over low heat for about 10 minutes. After that the sauce is completely ready.
You can add spices to taste, or even make the sauce a little spicy. If the sauce seems too thin, take the lid off the saucepan and let the excess moisture boil off.
Capellini cook in just 3 minutes, so it’s convenient to drop them into the boiling water during the last minutes of simmering the sauce.

Serving

In the saucepan, combine the cooked capellini and the onion and tomato sauce. Toss gently.
Divide the pasta and onion sauce among plates, pouring the remaining sauce over the pasta.
Serve immediately, while the dish is still hot. Garnish the pasta with a sprig of herbs.