Spaghetti With Creamy Paprika Tomato Cream Sauce

This recipe is a close cousin of what I call Pink Spaghetti I’ve shared before, a pasta dish built on tomato sauce and cream, and honestly, I have a real soft spot for this style of simple pasta. It reminds me a lot of the “primi piatti,” or first course, you’d get in a more traditional Italian meal, which tends to be a soup or a simple pasta dish, often with just a touch of cheese or tossed in a simple sauce.

In this case, the sauce is built on a base of Spanish style fried tomato and cream, with a little extra kick, though I wouldn’t call it spicy, since the tomato and cream mellow out any spicy heat quite a bit. There’s just a pinch of smoked paprika and cayenne pepper in there, so what you end up with is a creamy, comforting dish with a small peppery edge. It’s absolutely delicious and super easy to make at home. Let’s get to it!

Spaghetti With Creamy Paprika Tomato Cream Sauce

Servings: 2
Time: 30mins
Difficulty: Easy
Rating: ★★★★★
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Nothing beats a good simple spaghetti, delicious and creamy with fried tomato and cream, it's one of those quick, tasty recipes that's good for any day of the week!

Ingredients

Spaghetti – 150g
Fried Tomato Sauce – 200ml
Cream – 100ml
Garlic – 2 Cloves
Oregano – A Pinch
Smoked Paprika – A Pinch
Cayenne Pepper – A Pinch
Pepper – A Pinch
Salt – A Pinch

Directions

Start by cooking the spaghetti as usual in a large pot with plenty of hot water and a pinch of salt. When it starts to boil, add the pasta, stir, and cook for about 10 to 12 minutes (as recommended on the package) until tender. Then drain and add directly to the sauce.
The sauce takes about 2 to 3 minutes to make, so start preparing it when the spaghetti is almost ready.
In a wide skillet (where you can add all the spaghetti later), add the fried tomato sauce, heavy cream, 2 crushed garlic cloves, a pinch of dried oregano, smoked paprika (or paprika), cayenne pepper, black pepper, and salt.
Let it cook for about 2 to 3 minutes, if the sauce gets too thick use a bit of a pasta cooking water on the sauce, taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking, then add the spaghetti (or pour the sauce into the pan with the drained spaghetti), mix everything well, and it’s ready to serve. Enjoy!

Notes & Tips: One of the perks of this dish is that since you’re using fried tomato sauce, it comes out of the jar already cooked and ready to use, which is what makes this sauce something you can pull together in just a few minutes. If you used raw tomato or tomato paste instead, you’d need to cook it down for about 10 minutes to get it properly cooked and flavorful.

Of course, if you can’t get your hands on fried tomato sauce, just use tomato pulp instead, cook it down for about 10 minutes until it softens, and then stir in the cream.

Reserve a splash of the pasta cooking water before you drain it, since a spoonful stirred into the sauce helps loosen it up and helps the sauce cling to the spaghetti if it looks too thick. Also, don’t let the cream boil hard once it’s in the pan, a gentle simmer keeps it silky instead of splitting.

This sauce is very forgiving on the spice front, so taste as you go and adjust the cayenne and paprika to your own heat tolerance.

This recipe for Spaghetti With Creamy Paprika Tomato Cream Sauce was originally created on BakeAfter.com. Esta receita de Esparguete Cremoso de Tomate foi publicada em português no Iguaria.com.