How to Thicken Spaghetti Sauce: 8 Different Ways

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If you make your own tomato sauce for spaghetti, which I highly encourage you to do because it’s so much better and less expensive than store-bought sauce, you might find yourself wondering how to thicken it if it turns out a bit watery. Don’t worry, it happens to all of us!  

If you’re whipping up some pasta and having a hard time thickening your spaghetti sauce, we’ve got you covered. The answer is usually as simple as either cooking it down more or adding tomato paste. Let’s dive in.

tomato sauce

8 Ways to Thicken Spaghetti Sauce

You make spaghetti sauce by cooking tomatoes with spices and seasonings to create a super flavorful sauce. It’s meant to be cooked for a long period of time so that much of the liquid from the tomatoes can cook down and thicken, but sometimes you’re in a hurry and don’t have time.

When you serve watery sauce over your pasta, it won’t stick to the noodles and the water will begin to pool on the plate. It’s not exactly a “problem”, but it’s not very appealing. The best thing would be to get the sauce thick before you serve it.

If your sauce turned out more liquidous than you wanted, here are a few excellent ways to thicken it.

1. Add Tomato Paste 

The fastest and best way to thicken your spaghetti sauce is with a little bit of tomato paste. Tomato paste is very concentrated, so a small amount goes a long way. When it’s added to tomato sauce made with chopped tomatoes, it will instantly begin to thicken the sauce by incorporating with the water.

The tomato paste also adds a rich tomato flavor that really brightens up the sauce. For these reasons, I always use tomato paste in my spaghetti sauce to make it thicker and help it stick to the pasta better.

In almost every case, this is all you need to make your watery spaghetti sauce thicker. If you don’t have any tomato sauce, continue reading for additional ideas.

2. Simmer and Reduce

Sometimes your spaghetti sauce just needs to reduce a little bit more, to allow the excess water to evaporate. If you’ve already added tomato sauce, or you don’t have any, this is the next best option. Allowing the sauce to reduce over low heat is one of the best ways to thicken it.

Reducing requires more cooking time than other methods. However, it does not affect the original sauce recipe, because it is tomato based. Cooking it longer actually helps to develop even more flavor, so not only will it not negatively affect the sauce, it will actually improve it.

How long you need to simmer it for will depend on how watery or liquidy you sauce was to begin with. Keep an eye on it as it cooks and remove it from the heat when the sauce is as thick as you want it to be.

3. Add Starchy Water

Starch is what is released into the cooking water when you make pasta. Did you know that you can use this starchy water to thicken your spaghetti sauce? It might sound counterintuitive adding more water to a watery sauce, but it works!

The salty, starchy water not only adds flavor to the sauce, but helps glue the pasta and sauce together; it will also help thicken the sauce as it cooks.

It works much like adding a cornstarch slurry to a sauce or gravy works. The starch, when heated in a liquid, soaks up water, swells, and releases molecules that thicken the sauce.

So next time you’re making your spaghetti noodles, don’t toss out the water! Add a small ladle of it to your sauce and let it simmer for 5 minutes, then add the pasta to the sauce and cook together for a few minutes. This will dramatically improve the dish.

4. Add a Cornstarch Slurry

I just got done explaining how starchy pasta water helps to thicken the sauce, but what if you’ve already tossed out the water! If you don’t have any starchy water left to put in, you can use a cornstarch slurry instead.

To be clear, this should be a last resort, because it can change the texture of the sauce and make it glazed. I don’t recommend it unless there are no other alternatives.

You don’t need a lot to thicken your sauce. You don’t want to add to much and risk the sauce seizing up and becoming gloopy. So mix 1-2 teaspoons of cornstarch with cold water in a bowl, then add it to your sauce. Simmer the sauce until it reaches your desired consistency.

5. Add Some Ground Beef

Adding a protein, like ground beef or pork, strengthens the flavor of any red sauce and it will naturally thicken the sauce.

You can give your tomato sauce the consistency of a meat sauce like Bolognese with ground beef. All you need to do is brown the ground beef in a pan and crumble it into small pieces. When it’s done, add it to the pot with your sauce and simmer it until everything has thickened.

It’s definitely best when the ground beef has been crumbled up into very small pieces. It won’t fully prevent your sauce from leaching water onto the plate, but you might not care so much since the sauce is thick.

Alternative Methods for Thickening Sauce

When all else fails, there are a few alternative methods that you can use to thicken your sauce. I wouldn’t go to any of these until you’ve you’ve exhausted the five possibilities above. Those five will maintain the integrity of the sauce, without introducing additional ingredients that might alter the taste and texture.

If you don’t have the means to thicken any other way, here are 3 alternative ways you can thicken a spaghetti sauce.

6. Add Mashed Potatoes

If you have any leftover mashed potatoes, or any dried boxed potatoes, you can add a few servings to your sauce to thicken it up. Add a small amount, like 1-2 tablespoons at a time and stir it in well. 

Allow the potatoes to absorb the moisture before continuing to add any additional potatoes. Before serving, taste the sauce and season as necessary. Potatoes need a lot of salt, so you will likely have to adjust the amount of salt you’ve added.

7. Add Heavy Cream or Cheese

Many Italian tomato sauces have cream or cheese added. While this isn’t a typical spaghetti sauce, it’s not too far fetched. It will still taste great, though it will be a bit different than what you started with.

Start by removing the pan from the heat and adding a spoonful or two of heavy cream, cream cheese, or an aged cheese like Parmesan or Pecorino, to increase the creaminess factor of your sauce.

Stir the cream or cheese into the sauce until it’s completely mixed, then return it to the heat. Keep simmering the sauce as necessary.

8. Use Egg Yolks

To replicate the rich creamy texture of carbonara sauce, you could add egg yolks to your sauce to thicken it. To prevent the yolks from scrambling, whisk them in a bowl and slowly add some of the hot spaghetti sauce to the bowl, stirring constantly.

Once you’ve added about 1/4 cup of the sauce to the eggs, you can add it back into the full pot of sauce without risking the eggs cooking. This is called tempering the eggs. The protein in egg yolks thicken when heated and they also add a richness to your sauce at the same time.

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