Triple Tomato Pasta Sauce with Whole Wheat Penne

Triple Tomato Pasta Sauce with Whole Wheat Penne

Ingredients :-

1.     1lb whole wheat penne
2.     1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3.     1 onion, diced
4.     2 garlic cloves, diced
5.     1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, drained and diced
6.     1 tbsp tomato paste
7.     Salt & Pepper
8.     Red Pepper Flakes
9.     1 28 oz can whole tomatoes
10.     6 basil leaves, torn
11.     Basil for garnish

Directions:

•     In a large pot of boiling water, cook penne until al dente. Save 1/2 cup of pasta water when draining cooked pasta. You may need it to thin out the sauce.
•     In a sauce pan with olive oil, add onions and garlic. Stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add sun dried tomatoes and tomato paste. Continue stirring to incorporate paste. Add Salt & Pepper and a dash of red pepper flakes.
•     In a blender, add canned tomatoes, basil and onion mixture. Blend until smooth. Wipe/wash clean the sauce pan if there is a lot of oil from the sun-dried tomatoes. You don’t want a oily sauce. Add sauce back to the pan and keep warm until pasta is cooked. (If you have a Vitamix, just keep the sauce in the blender. The blades will warm it, so you can skip this step.) If the sauce is too thick, add a some of the pasta water to thin it out.
•     When the pasta is cooked and drained, add sauce and garnish with basil.