Stop What You’re Doing and Go Grate a Tomato

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We ran this genius method for grated tomato sauce in 2016, and I have been grating tomatoes ever since. No dicing, no slicing, no pulsing in a food processor. You can debate the best tomato to use in your marinara—plum, beefsteak, Campari, heirloom, canned?!?—but thanks to chef Ashley Christensen, who shared this trick with us, we know definitively that the easiest way to turn the flesh into sauce-ready pulp is with your 4-sided box grater. You know, the thing that you normally use to shred cheese.

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Why is grating so great? (Sorry, not sorry.) First of all, it eliminates the need to find a knife sharp enough to cut through the tomato skin without smashing it to smithereens, which—let’s be honest—most of us don’t have. The curved cutters on the grater mimic the shredding action of an old-fashioned food mill, but with a lot less equipment clean-up involved. Plus, you can set the grater right into a big bowl to catch all the tomato flesh and juices and keep your cutting board free of all tomato liquid that inevitably runs onto your counter, and then down the front of your cabinet doors. (That’s not just a me thing, right?) Even better, as you scrape the tomato back and forth against the grater’s little blades, the skin will just split apart and peel back in your hand. When the skin is flattened and you’ve arrived at the stem end, you’re done.

But truly the most wonderful thing about grated tomatoes is how quickly they can be transformed into sauce, which preserves their bright, summery, fresh flavors. For a couple-beefsteak’s worth of tomato flesh, I like to start in a wide shallow pan with about ⅓ cup of extra virgin olive oil and 5 or 6 smashed garlic cloves. Put that over medium heat and cook until the garlic is sizzling, then smash the cloves into the oil and keep cooking until they’re light golden brown. At that point, I usually add a bunch of cranks of black pepper and a big pinch of Aleppo or crushed red pepper flakes, then the tomatoes and a healthy dose of kosher salt. If I have basil on hand, I’ll add a sprig or two (whole, so I can pluck the basil out at the end). Once the liquid reaches a rapid simmer, you can drop your pasta into boiling, salted water. By the time the noodles are done (8 minutes?), the sauce will be slightly reduced and extremely delicious. Put the pasta into the sauce, add a pat of butter if you want, and toss to coat. Serve topped with lots of grated Parmesan, of course.

If you find tomato “seconds” at the market—the ones that might be slightly bruised—do this with them. If you want to preserve tomatoes for winter, buy a couple of cut-rate 5-pound bags and grate them, then freeze in jars. If you wanted to add a can of drained chickpeas or white beans to this sauce, that would be amazing, too. Or you could use this sauce to make eggs in purgatory. I gilded a version of this sauce with cooked lobster on my show Back to Back Chef, which was pretty legendary—try with shrimp! Honestly, you could spoon this sauce over a slice of toasted stale bread and call it panzanella soup. Wait. That’s a good idea. I’m doing that.

Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit