Pasta Sauces: Penne Pasta with Italian Tomato Cream Sauce

As pasta sauces go, this is one of the nicest. It is certainly easy, as most Italian tomato sauce recipes are.

Italian Tomato Cream Sauce

Ingredients

• 6 ounces penne pasta, uncooked (or whatever pasta shape you prefer)
• vegetable cooking spray
• 3/4 cup finely chopped sweet red pepper
• 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 - 14 ounce can tomatoes, chopped but undrained
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup evaporated skimmed milk or fresh cream

Method

Variations and Tips:

• If you want a sauce with meat in it, just brown 8 ounces of ground beef with the onion, garlic and pepper and season to taste.
• If you would like to cut the fat in this recipe, replace the cream with an equal amount of evaporated skim milk. The taste will be similar, but the fat content will be cut drastically.
• Up the vegetable count and make this a really healthy pasta recipe by adding more vegetables. Add chopped zucchini or mushrooms to the sauce when you add the tomatoes. Or any other vegetable that you think might taste good.
• Cooking for a larger group? Just double or triple the recipe, tasting to adjust the seasonings.
• Make it healthier by serving the sauce over whole wheat pasta.

Although this lovely pasta recipe is usually served as a vegetarian pasta meal, you can certainly add meat to it if you would prefer.

Just brown 1/2 pound of ground beef or a thinly sliced chicken breast.

If you are using meat, add it at the beginning, to brown with the onions and garlic, then let it cook with the tomatoes to soak up that lovely tomato flavor.

I like this as a vegetarian meal because I think that meat eaters often get lots of meat in their diet. An occasional (or more than occasional) vegetarian meal is great for our health.

Whether vegetarian or the meat version, I think you will really enjoy the flavors of this wonderful Italian sauce.

If you like this recipe, I’d love you to Pin it to Pinterest, Tweet about it, Like it on Facebook and leave a comment below.

For more pasta sauces and other Italian recipes, look here.

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