Neapolitan sauce is the collective name given (outside Italy) to various basic

tomato The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible Berry (botany), berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originate ...

-based

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi- solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

s derived from

Italian cuisine Italian cuisine is a Mediterranean cuisine#CITEREFDavid1988, David 1988, Introduction, pp. 101–103 consisting of the ingredients, recipes, and cooking techniques developed in Italy since Ancient Roman cuisine, Roman times, and later spread ...

, often served over or alongside

pasta Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an Leavening agent, unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or Eggs as food, eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Pasta was originally on ...

. In

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

, Neapolitan sauce is simply referred to as ''salsa'', which literally translates to 'sauce'.

Basil Basil (, ; , ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' (, )), also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a hardiness (plants), tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" r ...

bay leaf The bay leaf is an aromatic leaf commonly used as a herb in cooking. It can be used whole, either dried or fresh, in which case it is removed from the dish before consumption, or less commonly used in ground form. The flavour that a bay lea ...

thyme Thyme () is a culinary herb consisting of the dried aerial parts of some members of the genus ''Thymus (plant), Thymus'' of flowering plants in the mint family Lamiaceae. Thymes are native to Eurasia and north Africa. Thymes have culinary, medici ...

oregano Oregano (, ; ''Origanum vulgare'') is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It was native to the Mediterranean region, but widely naturalised elsewhere in the temperate climate, temperate Northern Hemisphere. Oregano is a ...

, peppercorns,

clove Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands, or Moluccas, in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring, or Aroma compound, fragrance in fin ...

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'' ("European olive"), is a species of Subtropics, subtropical evergreen tree in the Family (biology), family Oleaceae. Originating in Anatolia, Asia Minor, it is abundant throughout the Mediterranean ...

s, and

mushrooms A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...

may be included depending on taste preferences. Some variants include

carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in colour, though heirloom variants including purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild ...

s and

celery Celery (''Apium graveolens'' Dulce Group or ''Apium graveolens'' var. ''dulce'') is a cultivated plant belonging to the species ''Apium graveolens'' in the family Apiaceae that has been used as a vegetable since ancient times. The original wild ...

. Outside Italy, the basic sauce is

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

, although meat such as minced beef or sausage can be added. By contrast, in Italy, the sauce dish carrying Naples in its name is a sauce called

Neapolitan ragù Neapolitan ragù, known in Italian as or (), is a variety of ragù associated with the city of Naples. It is made from two main parts: meat, and tomato sauce to which a few seasonings are added. Two distinctive features are the type of meat ...

Origin

Historically, the first Italian cookbook to include a tomato based sauce,

Elizabeth David Elizabeth David ( Gwynne, 26 December 1913 – 22 May 1992) was a British cookery writer. In the mid-20th century she strongly influenced the revitalisation of home cookery in her native country and beyond with articles and books about Europea ...

, ''Italian Food'' (1954, 1999), p. 319, and John Dickie, ''Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and Their Food'', 2008, p. 162. ''Lo Scalco alla Moderna'' (''The Modern Steward''), was written by Italian chef Antonio Latini and was published in two volumes in 1692 and 1694. Latini served as the Steward of the First Minister to the Spanish Viceroy of Naples.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Neapolitan Sauce Tomato sauces