Quattro Tomato Pasta
Q was a hard one.
Honestly, we couldn’t think of anything for a while, so we landed on Quattro Tomato Pasta — mostly because it sounded fun, but also because it gave us a chance to do something I really love: take one simple ingredient and build flavour with it in different ways.
Tomato is such a staple that we sometimes treat it like one thing.
But it isn’t.
A fresh tomato does something different from tomato paste. A sun-dried tomato brings something else entirely. And a cherry tomato, added right at the end, gives you a completely different bite.
That’s what this pasta is really about.
Not complexity for the sake of it, but layering.
Fresh tomato puree gives the sauce body and acidity. Tomato paste brings that deep red colour and intense, cooked-down tomato flavour. Sun-dried tomatoes add savoury, almost jammy umami notes. And cherry tomatoes bring everything back to freshness with these juicy little bursts in the pasta.
It’s one ingredient, but four different moods.
And when you build them together with a handful of other ingredients, you get a sauce that feels easy but tastes like it has a lot more going on.
This is the kind of pasta I love because it proves that you don’t always need a long ingredient list.
Sometimes, you just need to understand what one ingredient can do when you use it properly.
Ingredients
200 g penne
Salt, for boiling water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
3-4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup fresh tomato puree
1 tbsp tomato paste
¼ cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1 cup spinach
¼ to ½ cup pasta water, as needed
½ cup cherry tomatoes, halved
Method
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
Cook the penne till al dente. Reserve at least ½ cup of pasta water before draining.
In a separate pan, heat olive oil.
Add diced onion and cook till softened.
Add garlic and cook for another minute until fragrant.
Add the fresh tomato puree and use it to deglaze the pan.
Let it cook down slightly, then add the tomato paste.
Cook the tomato paste for a couple of minutes until the colour deepens and the sauce starts looking richer.
Add the chopped sun-dried tomatoes and mix well.
Add spinach and a splash of pasta water, then let everything cook down together until the sauce becomes glossy and slightly thickened.
Add the cooked penne and toss until well coated.
Add more pasta water if needed to loosen the sauce.
Finally, add the cherry tomatoes and toss briefly so they stay juicy and fresh.
Notes
The tomato paste is important because it gives the sauce depth and that bright, deep red colour. I use this Rodolfi Parma one.
Sun-dried tomatoes bring a lot of umami, so a little goes a long way.
Add the cherry tomatoes at the end so they don’t completely collapse. You want them to stay fresh and juicy.
Spinach is optional, but it adds colour, freshness, and makes the pasta feel a little more complete.
