The grandma-style sauce that simmers for hours is wonderful and also unnecessary for most weeknights. A bright, fresh, deeply tomato-forward sauce is thirty minutes away if you buy the right tomatoes and treat them with restraint.
Start with San Marzano DOP plum tomatoes -- the indented can with three letters that prove the origin. Crush them with your hands in the pot, never a blender. Add olive oil, a smashed garlic clove, a pinch of salt, and a torn basil sprig. Simmer twenty minutes.
That is the sauce. No onion, no carrot, no sugar, no oregano. The sweetness is in the tomatoes, the body is in the cooking, and the depth is in the olive oil. You can build it up later for a Sunday ragu; for tonight, do less.
