Perché Ci Credo Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce
Choose options
A classic sugo al pomodoro e basilico from Perché Ci Credo — the artisan producer in Lecce, in the heel of Puglia. The simplest sauce in the Italian repertoire, and the one most often gets done badly. Italian tomatoes (85%), softened in extra virgin olive oil with onion, finished with fresh basil and a touch of salt. Five ingredients, nothing else. No added sugar, no preservatives, no concentrate, no shortcuts.
This is a sauce built on the quality of its tomatoes rather than on additions to disguise them. The 85% tomato content is unusually high — most jarred tomato-and-basil sauces sit between 60% and 70% with the rest of the volume taken up by water, oil, sugar, starches and stabilisers. The Salento is one of the great tomato-growing regions of Italy — sun-baked, low-rainfall, mineral-rich soil — and what comes through in the jar is the bright, sweet, deeply tomato-forward character of properly grown southern Italian fruit, lifted by the aromatic top note of fresh basil and rounded by gentle onion in good oil. The texture is loose and clean, the way a southern Italian sugo should be — not the heavy, sweetened, almost ketchup-like consistency of supermarket pasta sauce.
This is the foundation jar — the everyday plate of pasta on a Tuesday night, the base of a quick spaghetti al pomodoro, the sauce to start with when nothing else will do. Made the way it has always been made in the kitchens of southern Puglia, and proof that the simplest dish in Italian cooking is also the hardest to do well.
Producer: Perché Ci Credo, Lecce, Salento, Puglia, Italy
Tomato content: 85%
Ingredients: Tomato 85% (Italy), onion, extra virgin olive oil, basil 2%, salt
No added: Sugar, preservatives, colourings or additives
Net: 330g
Serves: 3–4 with 350g of pasta
Allergens: None
Storage: Store in a cool, dry place. Refrigerate after opening and consume within 3 days.
