There was a nearby sale on Mutti passata, so I got a few jars to try. My first use was to make pasta sauce while the pasta was cooking. I chopped up onion and mushrooms, sauteed them in olive oil, added garlic, herbs and black pepper, all while the water came to a boil and the pasta cooked. When it was a minute away from al dente, I poured the passata into the onion mushroom to heat, drained the pasta, sauced it, added grated cheese. It was nice.
How else should I try passata?
You can add it to soups and stews.
I like it as Marcella Hazan’s sauce recipe - butter, a halved onion, simmer for 30 min or so (remove onion).
My favorite way to use this sauce is either with just a spaghetti type pasta, a little parmesan cheese - but simple. Or, with a cheese ravioli, again simple. Maybe a little chiffonade basil on top.
If you wanted to be a little more adventurous, I wonder how it would be as the liquid component when making a pasta or bread dough.
Pizza sauce (if you want it a bit thicker, add some tomato paste, but it probably won’t need it).
Use it in a lasagna layer.
What about a Bloody Mary? You could thin it with a bit of water if you don’t want it quite that thick.
Maybe it will help to simply think of passata as tomato purée. Took me awhile to get onboard with that, because I tended to forget that except when I was cooking Italian dishes.
Just think of it as a tomato sauce or as a change from chopped tomatoes. We always have a couple of cartons in the cupboard. And always the plain version, never those with added herbs, etc, as they are not as flexible.
