This quick and easy tomato pasta sauce with cream cheese recipe is pure comfort food. It's deliciously creamy, filling, and ready in about 15 minutes!Recipe yields to 4 small servings.
Prep Time5 minutesmins
Total Time10 minutesmins
Course: pasta
Cuisine: Italian
Keyword: Tomato sauce with cream cheese
Servings: 4
Calories: 371kcal
Author: Katia
Ingredients
Pasta
8oz(225 grams)Pasta (long or short pasta will work...)
Tomato pasta sauce with cream cheese
1tablespoonbutter or olive oil
2 or 3 garlic cloves, minced
½brown or white onion, finely diced
¼teaspoonchili flakes (optional)
¾ cup(200 ml)tomato passata (aka tomato puree)
1teaspoondried basil (or 1 tbsp of chopped fresh basil)*
½ cup(120 grams)cream cheese (I used philadelphia)
¼ cupparmesan cheese, freshly grated
¼ cup(60 ml)reserved pasta water
¼teaspoonfine salt, or to taste
⅛black pepper, plus more to serve
Instructions
Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted until al dente (follow the package directions). A couple minutes before draining, scoop out approx 1 cup of pasta cooking water.
While the pasta is cooking, melt butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic, onion, chili flakes, and cook gently for about 2 minutes.
Add the tomato passata, the dried basil, give a stir, lower the heat, and cook for 5 minutes.
Stir in the cream cheese, the parmesan cheese, and ¼ cup of the reserved pasta water (start with ¼ cup and add more later when you toss in the pasta if you need to). Stir until well combined and emulsified, it takes seconds. Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking (I add ¼ tsp of salt and freshly ground black pepper).
Drain the pasta, add it to the skillet, toss to coat (it takes about 10 seconds).
Turn the heat off and serve immediately with freshly grated parmesan cheese is you wish. Enjoy!
Notes
Herbs: 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh basil leaves work too, and you can add them along with the cream cheese.Storage: you can store the tomato pasta sauce with cream cheese leftovers in airtight container in the fridge for up 3 days. Reheat it before adding to cooked pasta, and toss well until combined. Nutrition facts: the nutrition values are for one serving and they are based on an online nutrition calculator. It’s an estimate only and it should not be considered as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice (extra parmesan cheese to serve is not included). Please see my disclosure policies.