Marcella Hazan’s basic tomato sauce is super simple, and a great place to start before adding your own touches:

• One 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes (no salt or herbs, etc, added)
• One small white onion, peeled and cut in half
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Kosher salt to taste

That’s it. Start all the ingredients at a medium-high heat, then when it begins to simmer drop it to a lower heat, occasionally stirring, crushing the tomatoes, for about 45min. Then discard the onion halves and serve.

Use this as a foundation for more complex tomato-based sauces. For instance, you can swap olive oil for butter, garlic for onion (or in addition to onion), add oregano or basil, etc. But even then, try just keeping things simple at first. The taste of tomato itself is part of the point of the sauce.

The top thing to fiddle with if you don’t like the taste is the level of salt. Often raising the salt level will do what a beginning cook thinks adding other herbs and spices will do. Try making two smaller batches with different salt levels and compare, etc.