If you don’t like spicy food, just leave out the crushed red pepper in this recipe for vodka sauce. Your family will devour the leftovers straight from the refrigerator thanks to this recipe. Use the best vodka you can; it makes a huge difference, I promise! Add grated Parmesan cheese as a garnish before serving with pasta.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 35 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 50 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
Ingredients
- 1 cup vodka
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¾ pound prosciutto, chopped
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 (28 ounce) can Roma tomatoes, with juice
- 2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
- 1 cup water
- 1 cup heavy cream
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine vodka and red pepper flakes. Set aside for 1 hour.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add prosciutto, garlic, parsley, basil, salt, and pepper; sauté until prosciutto is evenly browned. Pour in vodka mixture and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Crush Roma tomatoes and add to sauce with canned tomato sauce and water. Simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in heavy cream and cook for 2 more minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 207 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 5 g |
| Cholesterol | 42 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 10 g |
| Saturated Fat | 6 g |
| Sodium | 1065 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 12 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Excellent Whole family and friends loved it Just the right hint of spice
Great sauce
Delicious!!! I use pancetta instead of Prosciutto. I leave out the cream when just wanting a tomato based sauce. It’s delicious both ways. I always make it when company comes over.
Added a pound of saute shrimp to the sauce
This is excellent! I’ve had vodka sauce out of a jar and I didn’t care for it. However, this recipe is one of my all time favorite meals. The first few times I made it, I used a can of peeled tomatoes and smooshed them a few times with my spatula, but last night, I used a can of crushed tomatoes. I think I liked the peeled tomato version better as it was a little chunkier so you got bites of tomato. Either way, it’s delicious.
I make this a lot. It is delicious! I usually buy the prosciutto thin, and then I use my kitchen shears to cut it into small pieces. I also put in 8oz of tomato paste to thicken it up a little bit. Never disappoints!
This is a good recipe to start with, but I made changes the second time I made it, and it was amazing! If you make it as-is, it will be way too watery. I cut the vodka in half and added only 1/2 cup. I cut the red pepper flakes in half and added 1/2 tsp. I only diced up 2 slices of prosciutto, since 3/4 of a lb. sounded like way too much. I also omitted the water, and only used 1/2 cup of heavy cream. You can modify it as you like, so don’t be disappointed the first time. Make some changes and try again!
This was a HUGE HIT for my family of boys. I used 2 small boxes of orecchiette noodles. I used a pound of spicy ground Italian sausage instead of prosciutto. I added a little more of everything. For me, I added arugula at the end to wilt it. Simply amazing.
Easy recipe. Results were fantastico. My wife and I really enjoyed it
made it according to the recipe. the entire family loved it. I’ve made several times since and usually stick with the recipe. a couple of times I’ve made some mods to suit our tastes. it’s great and will be made again and again
I was fairly inebriated when I was told I was making dinner. I switched the heavy cream to sour cream and who knows how much vodka I put in, but everybody loved it. the sauce was enough for 6 servings, thank you for the recipe
I was fairly inebriated when I was told I was making dinner. I switched the heavy cream to sour cream and who knows how much vodka I put in, but everybody loved it. the sauce was enough for 6 servings, thank you for the recipe
Tastes as good as one of the best Italian restaurants in Chicago!
This turned out very spicy. I only soaked the red pepper flakes for 15 minutes so maybe that was why? I liked it but my husband couldn’t eat it because it was too spicy for him.
Best vodka sauce recipe by far. We’ve compared it to bottled sauces and even high end Italian restaurants and it’s better in my opinion. We like spice, so we added extra garlic and red pepper flakes.
This recipe is one of our favorites. We don’t really like ham and we certainly can’t afford prosciutto so I blacken mushrooms with Montreal seasoning. Also, can’t figure out what that cup of water is for so I don’t add it. Turns out perfect every time.
So I absolutely cannot IMAGINE adding an 8oz can of water to this sauce. It is SO good without and very thin without! The consistency was like soup. That being said, I followed the recipe exactly except I didn’t use the 3/4lb of prosciutto. I used a 3oz package of prosciutto and then about 1/4lb of bacon. NO WAY could I afford to use nearly a pound of prosciutto! Pancetta would be a good sub too. Prosciutto is a cured meat similar to salame so it’s a strange addition (usually eaten “uncooked” since it’s cured) but it was super tasty. To the fool who didn’t add the prosciutto, YES that was your problem. Did you just pour 1c of vodka into a cold pan? Or did you sautéed chopped parsley, Basil, and garlic by itself? Lol!! When you sautée the prosciutto and basil, parsley, etc together, the pan will then be “hot”, and when you add the vodka, it will sizzle and VERY quickly reduce. I probably had 1/4 to 1/3c remaining liquids after the 10 minutes was up. Most of the vodka will evaporate off! I added slightly less red pepper flakes because kids were eating it, and I did purée the whole tomatoes in the blender after the first one I hand crushed splattered all over my clean stove. So my sauce was very thin. ANYWAY. This was delish! Oh yea and I used the cheapest vodka in a plastic bottle 🙂
3/10/2017 If I could rate it 10 stars I would. Great recipe!
Yummy! It was easy to make and my family loved it!!!
I did half a tsp of red pepper flakes, so the kick wasn’t white as strong, added a little less than half of a small white onion, and used thinly sliced ham instead of prociuto (our store didn’t have any). We also cooked chicken and mixed it into the sauce. This is better than any vodka sauce recipe from any restaurant, and certainly better than the jarred stuff. We have four children and they ALL ate this up! Only complaint (not bad enough to take a star away!) is that the sauce was somewhat thinner than desired. Next time we won’t add the cup of water when we put the sauce in.
Great tasting recipe. I would usggest to add a chopped onion and skip the cup of water at the end to make sauce slightly thicker.