This is a classic Italian tomato sauce that can be found in various forms all over Italy, referred to as Sugo di Pomodoro in Italian, and is also found throughout the world! We have many variants of tomato sauce recipes, but this classic version is definitely one of our favorites to make because it’s simple, versatile and incredibly delicious! This is our go-to recipe for sugo, and we know you will love it too!

Looking for more classic Italian recipes? Check out our Red Wine Slow Braised Italian Beef Ragù and Creamy Cacio e Pepe Pasta.
Jump to:
- What is Italian Sugo di Pomodoro?
- Why You'll Love this Sugo Recipe
- Ingredients
- Substitutions
- How to Make Sugo di Pomodoro
- Equipment
- Step-by-Step Instructions
- Variations
- Storage
- Top tips
- Troubleshooting
- What to Make with Sugo di Pomodoro sauce?
- Looking for more Italian recipes?
- FAQ
- Related
- Pairing
- 📖 Recipe
- Food safety
What is Italian Sugo di Pomodoro?
An authentic Italian tomato sauce, or sugo di pomodoro, has at its base three components, but often more ingredients are incorporated to give it a ton of flavor. Tomatoes, onion, and garlic are almost always used in this classic Ita;ian tomato sauce. Other ingredients commonly found are various herbs, salt, pepper, chile pepper, and red wine.
Our version of Sugo di Pomodoro includes the classic ingredients along with a few other flavor-makers that really make it something special. And to stay on brand, we of course made this homemade tomato sauce with red wine!
Why You'll Love this Sugo Recipe
This Italian red sauce recipe is a real winner and we know you will love having this sauce around to make a variety of other recipes as well! Here is why we know you will love it:
- Simple ingredients that are easy to find at local grocery stores
- Ready in under an hour
- One-pot sauce, so you won't have a ton of dirty dishes to deal with!
- Versatile and can be incorporated into any dish that calls for "tomato sauce" or "spaghetti sauce"
- It's super delicious and way better than any store-bought sauce.
Ingredients
Our classic Italian tomato sauce recipe is made with just a few simple ingredients to give it that classic Italian flavor. As always, we recommend using the best quality ingredients for best results. Here is what you need to make this recipe:

- Olive oil: We use extra virgin olive oil in this recipe. It isn't necessary to use your highest quality or most expensive EVOO here because you only cook the onions in the olive oil.
- Onion: Our preference for this dish is yellow onion.
- Garlic cloves: We use a light to moderate amount of garlic in this recipe. Unlike what we often get in the United States, garlic isn't overused in Italian sauces giving them a nice flavor without being too garlicky.
- Tomato Paste: Just a touch deepens the flavor of the sauce.
- Red Wine: We like a small amount of sangiovese-based dry red wine. Chianti Classico is our go-to red wine to use in this recipe.
- Whole Tomatoes: Canned whole peeled tomatoes of the highest quality are key here, so buy the best tomatoes you can find, preferably an Italian brand if possible because they tend to be better quality. We buy imported Italian San Marzano (DOP) canned tomatoes for this recipe, which are usually easy to find at most grocery stores.
- Kosher Salt
- Basil: We use fresh basil leaves since basil is a natural herb to use with a tomato sauce that brightens the flavor.
- Oregano: Fresh oregano is the best to use here. It is another classic Italian herb for a tomato sauce.
- Rosemary: A very small amount of this flavorful herb works perfectly in this sauce. The fresh rosemary rounds out the flavors of the other herbs in this recipe.
- Bay Leaf: You only need one bay leaf in this recipe. You can remove it once the sauce is fully cooked.
See recipe card below for quantities.
Substitutions
Here are a few common substitutions for the ingredients in this tomato sauce recipe:
- Herbs: You can use just one, two or three if you wish. You can also add or substitute any of the four herbs we use with parsley, marjoram, or thyme with great results.
- Tomatoes: We use the canned whole peeled tomatoes in this recipe for ease and to save time. You can, of course, buy fresh tomatoes from your grocery store in place of a can of tomatoes, especially during tomato season. If you choose to use fresh tomatoes, you will need to blanch them first to remove the skins and they may need additional time to cook down. We recommend using a combination of Roma tomatoes and cherry tomatoes if you can't find fresh San Marzano tomatoes.
- Red Wine: We think that a red wine tomato sauce has much more flavor, but you can omit the wine in this recipe if desired. Additionally, you can use a different dry red wine such as pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, or merlot for this recipe.
How to Make Sugo di Pomodoro
This recipe comes together quite easily in under an hour and it’s a one-pot sauce. Just a little cooking of the onion to start with and the rest of the sauce is a snap!
Equipment
- A large sauce pot or Dutch oven is all you need!
Step-by-Step Instructions
Step 1: Cook the Onions
- First, cook the onions in the olive oil until fragrant, translucent but not browned.
Step 2: Add the Garlic, Tomato Paste, and Cook down the Wine
- Once the onions are done, add the garlic and tomato paste to the pot and cook very briefly - about 30 seconds. Then add the wine and, if necessary, deglaze the pan and scrape with a wooden spoon to get any brown bits off the bottom of the pot. Cook until there is very little wine left (about a Tablespoon).
Step 3: Add Tomatoes and Herbs and Cook
- Next add the tomatoes, salt and herbs, reserving some salt and basil for the end.
Step 4: Stir in Remaining Salt and Basil, Check for Seasoning
- Once the sauce has cooked for 30 minutes, remove it from the heat, and add the remaining salt and basil, and stir. The final product is a thick and delicious tomato-based sauce! Enjoy with your favorite pasta, lasagna, or as a dipping sauce with bread, meatballs, or pizza crust.
Variations
Here are a few ways to change up this recipe
- Replace the oregano with marjoram. Fresh marjoram isn’t the easiest to find for us, but the flavor is spectacular in this sauce so give it a try!
- In the summer you can certainly use fresh tomatoes in place of canned ones. They need to be of the highest quality as the tomatoes are the star of the show, and you should blanch the tomatoes to remove the skins before cooking them into the sauce.
- Add ½ cup of cream to the sauce to make it a tomato cream sauce. You may need to add a touch more salt to adjust the seasoning, but this is a great addition.
- Make it spicy! Add some crushed red pepper flakes or Calabrian chilies into the sauce to give this a nice spicy kick!

Storage
How to store sugo di pomodoro sauce:
Store this tomato sauce in an airtight container and refrigerate, or portion and freeze, until ready to use (see freezing advice below).
How long does sugo di pomodoro last in the fridge:
We recommend using or freezing within 5 days.
Can you freeze pomodoro sauce?
Absolutely. You can freeze this Italian tomato sauce for up to 6 months. To use, just thaw it out in a saucepan over very low heat, covered, until it is hot and ready to serve. The flavor quality only suffers a small amount when frozen so it is a great sauce to make a big batch of and freeze so that you have a delicious tomato sauce for busy weeknights.
Top tips
- Make sure you add the basil in two steps. The flavors are very different and it’s like having two different herbs in the sauce when added in this manner!
- Don’t be afraid to double this recipe and freeze it in portions that make sense to you. This sauce freezes well and is great to have whenever you're in the mood for pasta with tomato sauce!
Troubleshooting
Since tomatoes will determine the acidity or sweetness of the sauce, and they can range widely in sweetness and acidity, you may have to adjust at the end.
Sauce too acidic? If your sauce is too acidic, try adding ½ teaspoon of sugar until it is corrected.
Sauce too sweet? If it is too sweet, a very small amount (a couple of drops at a time) of sherry or red wine vinegar can help correct that.
Sauce too bland? Under-seasoned food will taste bland, and no one likes bland food. You shouldn't have this issue with this sauce, but try adding another pinch of salt or a few drops of red wine vinegar to enhance the flavors in the sauce.
Sauce too chunky? If you like your sauce a bit more smooth, go ahead and blend it with an immersion blender, food processor, or regular blender to make it smoother.
What to Make with Sugo di Pomodoro sauce?
Obviously pasta is the first thing that comes to mind. And that's exactly how we love to use this sauce! Other options include adding some to creamy polenta, on grilled chicken breasts, breaded and fried chicken or pork cutlets (think Chicken Parmigiana), or on some grilled vegetables! This is really the best tomato sauce to use for any recipe!
Here are a few ways we have used this sauce in our recipes:
- Pasta al Sugo di Pomodoro with Whipped Basil Ricotta
- Delicious Italian Pink Sauce Fusilli Pasta with Chicken
- Four Cheese and Vegetable Baked Ziti
Looking for more Italian recipes?
If you want more Italian recipes, you can find the classics under Classic Italian Recipes.
We also have a cookbook, Mangiamo. It includes 60 incredibly delicious Italian and Italian-inspired recipes.

FAQ
An authentic Italian sugo di pomodoro has tomatoes, onion, and garlic as the mainstays, but fresh herbs are obviously important for flavor as well.
This is a tough question as they are often used interchangeably depending on the region of Italy, or local customs. Technically, a Ragù often is meat-based and is cooked for a longer period of time, creating a rather reduced “stew” consistency. Tomatoes are not as important as meats, like sausage, pork, beef, etc., in a ragù as well. A sugo (meaning sauce, in Italian) is a cooked sauce that generally does not contain meat and is usually tomato-based like the one here. A salsa is generally a pureed sauce, often fresh and uncooked without any proteins, and is also usually tomato based. Salsas are generally not cooked at all or cooked relatively quickly in Italy and do not contain meat, but will often include tomatoes, herbs and vegetables.
Italian-Americans might use the term “gravy” for a sauce but it isn’t used in Italy. And it isn’t used by THIS Italian-American either. This “argument” is oddly heated at times, but using the term “gravy” in the United States probably originated in the northeast by Italian-Americans. Living in Texas and other places in the South, gravy is gravy, so it doesn’t make sense to us to use that term for a tomato sauce.
In Italy there are plenty of versions of meat sauce, such as ragú, and other meat-based sauces that incorporate tomatoes. But sugo di pomodoro doesn’t contain meat. You can, of course, use this sauce as a base and mix in some browned meat to make a heartier sauce for pasta if desired.
Short answer is yes, but it's best if you cook down the sauce a bit more to make it more concentrated and allow the water to evaporate more. Otherwise you may end up with a soggy pizza, and no one likes a soggy pizza! Check out our homemade pizza sauce recipe if you are looking for a tasty pizza sauce instead!
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
- Three Cheese Stuffed Shells with Spicy Italian Sausage Sauce
- Balsamic Green Beans with Sliced Almonds
- Brothy Italian Sausage and White Bean Soup
- Butternut Squash Ravioli with Rosemary Cream Sauce
Pairing
Pair these Italian meat, poultry and seafood dishes with a side of pasta with pomodoro sauce:
📖 Recipe

Sugo di Pomodoro (Classic Italian Tomato Sauce Recipe)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 2 small or 1 large yellow onion small dice
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 Tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ cup dry red wine such as chianti
- 2 28oz cans whole peeled tomatoes (56oz total) squished and broken up with your hands or a fork
- 3 teaspoon kosher salt divided
- 12 large basil leaves divided rough chopped
- 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon fresh rosemary finely chopped
Instructions
- In a Dutch oven or large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook until translucent, but not browned.
- Next, Add the garlic and tomato paste and stir until fragrant, about 20 seconds. Then, add the red wine and deglaze using a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pot, if necessary. Cook the red wine down to just a few tablespoons.
- Add the tomatoes, 1 teaspoon of the salt, half of the basil, all of the oregano, bay leaf, and rosemary. Bring to a boil, then cook uncovered for about 30 minutes to meld flavors and thicken the sauce.
- Remove from the heat, add the remaining salt and taste for seasoning, adding more if necessary. Stir in the remaining basil leaves and serve.
Nutrition
Food safety
- Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature (between 40°-140°F) for extended periods
- Never leave cooking food unattended
- Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds
- Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove
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