No Stupid Questions

Idk if anyone said it yet but

1. Blanche^*1^ the tomatoes,4 or 5 tomatoes will do.
2. Mash them in the emptied /same pot or a sauce pan with heat on low with a little bit of olive oil. 2(a). If your doing any meat or caramelized onions, start cooking that in a separate pan.
3. Start boiling water with like a pinch/teaspoon of salt for your pasta
4. I’ve your tomato puree is bubbling, add onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and a little bit of smoked paprika. Stir
5. Once the pasta is done, add some pasta water to the tomato sauce. If you had that meat/onions from 2(a) add here. Stir
6. Cut the heat once bubbling and add a little bit of vinegar and stir in off the heat. Serve with Parmesan and basil

^*1^ blanching is when you cut a couple x’s on the tomato skin, boil it for roughly 5-6 minutes then transfer it to cold water. Then you can easily peel and remove the tomato skins. If you don’t care/like tomato skins then skip blanching

Hope that helped

I saw a news show where they just mushed up tomatoes and threw in an italian seasoning mix to taste.

When in doubt I look to serious eats for a recipe. Specifically Kenji Lopez-Alt. Here's his red sauce recipe.

This used canned but you can just replace it with fresh. My wife and I make a pasta pomodoro where you just slightly cook fresh tomatoes with some garlic and basil. You cook the tomatoes in a pan with olive oil and garlic while your pasta cooks to al dente. Once cooked add some pasta water and cook to desired thickness (uncover to reduce liquid or covered to add). Throw in the pasta cook for 1 minute to cover and throw on basil. We do it with a burrata in the bowl as well. It's amazing and so easy

Anchovies are the secret ingredient to make it savory and delicious. Add one or two to your sauté at the beginning. The sauce will be way better and won’t taste like fish

Lots of great options have been offered to you already.

When I look for a recipe, I use noai.DuckDuckGo.com and add food network at the end of the search. It’s usually Alton Brown stuff that comes up.

I have two ways that i semi regularly use:

Onion fine dice, oil in pan, sweat onion till translucent, dice tomatoes, herbs incl garlic and chilli flakes in the oil for a short while(dealers choice), tomatoes in, lid on for 10min, lid off until you're at the right consistency, salt, maybe add sugar if not sweet enough.

Same ingredients in a glass backing dish, oven at 180°C for 35+ mins.

I don't care to remove tomato skins so I never do.

https://memoriediangelina.com/2012/04/22/tomato-sauce-101/

The whole site is a goldmine.

Start by sauteeing some onions in olive oil, with tomato paste if you have it. When they start to get translucent add some diced garlic and cook for a minute. You could also have some celery and carrots in the initial sauté with the onions.

At this point you can put in the tomatoes, and cook a bit then mash them up, with some water if they’re not that juicy. Some people like to peel the tomatoes… That means put them in a pan of boiling water after scoring them on a few sides, and then taking them out after a minute or two and removing the peels, then putting them into the sauce. I don’t do this. I just remove the peels after the sauce has been cooking for a while.

Add some salt. I find them my sauce tastes a lot better if I add a quarter cup or so of red wine such as Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon. If you don’t have that, some red wine vinegar helps to stoke the acidity. Sometimes I throw in some onion chunks, some mushrooms, and you should at some point probably add some herbs like garlic and basil.

Some recipes say to simmer for a really short time like 20 or 30 minutes. I prefer doing it for quite a while, like a few hours, which deepens the flavor and caramelizes the tomatoes for sweetness. One thing that I found I like is to cook it on the range in a Dutch oven for half an hour, and then put it in the oven at about 325 for a couple hours. That makes a really thick sauce. Just be sure if you do it on the range top to stir it often.

Don't need search engines for this. Martha Stewart has got you covered.

https://www.marthastewart.com/1554300/creamy-tomato-sauce

Sometimes the simpler the better. KISS. https://www.31daily.com/worlds-best-pasta-sauce/

I usually make quick sauces with my pasta and use whole canned peeled tomatoes. To alter for fresh, I'd score the tomatoes with a knife, then blanch and peel the skin off as the first step.

My default tomato-based sauce is:

• olive oil
• a few whole tomatoes (peeled) -- maybe about ~3 decently sized ones?
• garlic (either fresh minced or garlic powder)
• dried basil
• salt
• 1/4 tsp or so of capers
• a few kalamata olives
• pinch of MSG
• pinch of cayenne pepper

When using fresh garlic, I add it to the pan first -- with garlic powder I add it with the other seasonings. I basically just combine everything, break up the tomatoes with a spatula, and let it cook down on medium heat (stirring occasionally) while I boil my spaghetti -- then finish the spaghetti in the sauce.

I usually make this just for myself and eyeball the ingredients -- so unfortunately, I don't have exact measurements for most of it.

This is basically a variant of spaghetti puttanesca without anchovies -- feel free to add those instead of (or in addition to) the MSG if you'd prefer.

Do everything in the first paragraph in the nicely detailed guide by Zeppo, then instead put the tomatoes whole into a blender, (even the stalks fuck it, coz they're filled with goodness) chuck some tomato paste, a little vinegar some sugar, water and pepper and blend the fuck out of it. I like lots paprika in mine. When putting it in the pan cook for as long and slow as possible. At least an hour if you can spare the time. Plum tinned tomatoes are probably the best, but i know you asked about fresh.

Adding to the other commenters’ fantastic explanations, some minor tips:

Spices: basil, oregano, a quarter handful of bay leaves, thyme. Cover the whole pot with a generous layer of each, then stir in. If it gets too acidic, add a tiny dash of sugar. Beyond that is chef’s creativity, make it your own.

Time: A decent sauce is 3ish hours. Great sauces are all-day sauces. The best sauces are all-day sauces that are re-simmered for half an hour or so the next day.

Extra: Homemade sauce stores really well. Toss leftovers in a container in the freezer. Will last you a couple months at least.

I've never made a tomato sauce specifically, but ime with sauces - water is the enemy in the final product. So be sure to cook it a lot to get enough water out to make it nicely thick

Very first result from a basic search: all recipes..com

For just about any basic, check with America's Test Kitchen

Their cookbook is $20 all day long, and is packed with tons of foundational information and well-tested recipes.

Every beginning cook should have it.