{"id":144034,"date":"2022-10-01T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T00:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pizzatoday.com\/?post_type=topics&p=144034"},"modified":"2025-08-21T09:22:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T09:22:26","slug":"a-good-versatile-vodka-sauce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pizzatoday.com\/news\/a-good-versatile-vodka-sauce\/144034\/","title":{"rendered":"A Good, Versatile Vodka Sauce"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cVodka sauce is wonderful. Pairing it with penne is classier, but rigatoni is more subversive.\u201d
\n<\/span>\u2014 <\/span>Chef Joe Bianco<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

High Spirits<\/h1>\n

There are more ways to make vodka sauce than there are galaxies in the sky. Just read the glorious online promises from bloggers and writers exalting their recipes with \u201cbest ever\u201d or \u201cperfect way.\u201d Other recipes are peppered with \u201csimple trick\u201d or \u201ctransformative\u201d and even \u201cpositively magical.\u201d Penne alla Vodka is one of the most popular pasta dishes in the United States, but there is a huge difference between making a plate of pasta in a controlled recipe kitchen and making sixty pasta plates an hour in the hot chaos of a real restaurant. It is in this frenetic insanity where the restaurant chef shines, because their only concern is the sauce, the pasta and the dish. This is where vodka sauce gets personal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shaken, not stirred<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

The history of vodka sauce is as complex as the flavor itself and shaky at best. One claim is from James Doty, a Columbia University graduate student. Dante Restaurant in Bologna, Italy, is proud to say that their chef invented the dish, but there is a Roman chef that says he invented Penne alla Vodka to popularize vodka in Italy where wine is king. Others say it was an invention by Italian American chef Luigi Franzese of Orsini restaurant in New York. Whatever you believe, the combination of pasta, tomatoes, cream, cheese and vodka is genius. This explains why it is the fourth most popular pasta dish in America according to Taste Atlas. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Smirnoff the Makeup<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

Many pasta aficionados say that the addition of vodka both elevates the tomato flavor and makes the sauce creamier. Vodka, like other distilled spirits, enhances the release of fruity esters and other aromas at low percentages because the alcohol molecules have a slightly sweet taste and a pungent hotness. As the alcohol is cooked off in the sauce, the sweetness of the tomatoes is enhanced while the bitterness of the boozy alcohol taste disappears, leaving only a nuanced touch of heat.<\/p>\n

On the flip side of this, famous author and teacher James Peterson says in his James Beard Award-winning Book Sauces: \u201cVodka is useless in sauce making because it is a completely neutral-tasting product.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vodka sauce is a distant cousin to Sauce Aurore, which means sunrise in French and was a specialty of Chef Giovanni de Negris at La Primavera restaurant in Chicago. He paired his tomato puree with a thick b\u00e9chamel and a medley of vegetables and proteins. It can also be made with tomato puree and sauce velout\u00e9 (or a sauce supreme).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Expand your Vodkabulary<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s get down and dirty and muddle through the many ways that chefs put their individual flavor branding upon vodka cream sauce.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n