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.
That’s what I thought. The convenience of having it in a jar means I don’t have to use a whole can of puree etc. and it tastes better than the lower priced jarred pasta sauces.
100 percent. Once you are a passata person, there’s no going back (at least in my case).
I use it to make eggplant parm, Greek style pasta sauces, moussaka, and pastitsio.
I’ve used it in arrabiata sauce and puttanesca sauce as well as tortellini soup.
It’s a quick way to add the tomato element of some Indian curries like butter chicken and shahi paneer.
I’ve now used the passata to make arrabbiata and marinara sauces, quick and easy while the item to be sauced cooked. Just a few flavoring ingredients and a quick simmer, and I had sauce. All were better than the usual jarred sauces. There is a local sale on the Mutti passata starting in a few days, so I will stock up.. I wonder why I never thought to try it in the past.
I use it in this Serious Eats taco filling.
