Pasta Napoletana with Crushed Tomatoes

PASTA NAPOLETANA AND ITS TOMATO-BASED NEAPOLITAN SAUCE

The Pasta Napoletana recipe derives from Italian cuisine for its classic tomato-based Napoletana sauce. The main ingredient of Napoletana sauce is the tomato, which automatically gives the simple sauce a rich flavor. In addition to the tomato, the sauce is generally spiced up with garlic, onion, and herbs, such as basil, bay leaf, thyme, oregano, cloves, and black pepper, to give the sauce some extra flavor. Nonetheless, the sauce comes in various versions depending naturally on individual taste preferences, and therefore the sauce may include everything from olives and mushrooms to carrots and celery. The sauce is primarily vegetarian, however, it can also be modified to include meat, such as minced beef or sausage. In Italy, the meat-based Napoletana sauce is typically known as Neapolitan ragu. In any case, Napoletana sauce is commonly served with pasta or occasionally with spaghetti, known as Neapolitan spaghetti.

Interestingly enough, although the term Napoletana sauce is used collectively outside of Italy for tomato sauces, many Italians are not familiar with the name itself. Particularly in Naples, Neapolitan sauce is referred to as ‘la salsa’, which simply translates to ‘the sauce’.

PASTA NAPOLETANA RELIES ON THE QUALITY OF THE TOMATO

As tomatoes are the primary ingredient for Pasta Napoletana, it is especially important to prepare the Italian recipe with high-quality tomatoes. By using Mutti® Crushed Tomatoes (Polpa), you can effortlessly prepare a Napoletana sauce that guarantees a sweet flavor of freshly picked tomatoes without having to prepare the sauce from scratch. The tomatoes in Mutti® Polpa are picked when perfectly ripe from the Emilia Romagna region in Italy, after which they are cold crushed and processed with our patented technique to capture the rich and fresh flavor of just-harvested tomatoes. Mutti®Polpa is therefore ideal for a simple and appealing Pasta Napoletana.