When I went to make breakfast in a kitchen that was fairly low on ingredients, I managed to drum up a canned of tomatoes. I had a few eggs and realized that with those two items I could make a stellar breakfast. This is just one reason why I suggest always keeping a can of tomatoes on hand- so many meals can be made from this humble ingredient.

This tomato sauce is direct inspiration from Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce. It’s magic, seriously. Cooking the tomatoes for so long in butter and, in my case, shallots and chilis creates an rich and multi-dimensional sauce. It is the ultimate winter tomato sauce.

The market for alternative pasta has come a long way and I love that you can now get quality products in most grocery stores. Barilla just launched two types of legume pasta using red lentil and chickpea flour. Barilla’s line of chickpea pasta is made from only chickpea flour but holds together like regular pasta.

I love a little heat to my meals but not so much that you can’t actually taste the flavor of the dish. For this chili tomato sauce, I chose to use New Mexico chilis which have a nice flavor and a medium-ish level of heat (primarily referring to the red chili peppers, not Hatch chilis).

If you can’t find dried chili peppers, use about ½ to 1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper. The flavor won’t be quite the same but the desired effect will work.

Obviously I love the butter in this recipe but given the chickpea rotini is gluten-free, it’s easy to make a vegan/gluten-free dish. Swap the butter for a good olive oil. You want an olive oil that is fresh and has good flavor since it will be a big component of the overall tomato sauce flavor. Then leave off the parmesan or swap it for a vegan parmesan.