Borella - Pesto di Pomodori Secchi (180g)

Sun-drying is one of the oldest methods of food preservation in Italian cooking, and one of the most effective. Removing the water from a tomato while it is at peak ripeness concentrates everything that makes it worth eating - the sugars, the acids, the depth of flavour - into a fraction of the original volume. A sun-dried tomato tastes more intensely of tomato than the fresh version ever could.

Borella's Pesto di Pomodori Secchi takes that intensity and turns it into a ready-to-use sauce. Concentrated sun-dried tomatoes combined with olive oil, garlic, and aromatic herbs produce something with a bold, deep, slightly tangy character - richer than a conventional tomato sauce, more spreadable, sitting somewhere between a pesto and a tapenade in texture and use.

Founded in 1935 as Pastificio Bassanese in the Venetian countryside, Borella maintains the same approach to its sauces as to its pasta: premium raw ingredients, no preservatives, no artificial colours. The sun-dried tomato pesto is exactly what it describes - nothing diluting it, nothing added to simplify the label.

As a pasta sauce it needs no cooking. Toss with pasta and a little pasta water to loosen. As a spread, it works on everything from a good piece of bread to a toasted sandwich with burrata. On pizza it replaces a conventional tomato sauce with something considerably more complex. Stirred into mayonnaise or yoghurt it makes an instant dip. A spoonful added to a pan sauce or vinaigrette adds depth without any extra effort.

This is the kind of product that earns its place in the fridge because it solves multiple problems at once - a flavour shortcut that doesn't taste like one.

Best for: Pasta, pizza bases, bruschetta, sandwiches, antipasto platters, grilled chicken or fish, and anywhere you want intense sun-dried tomato character without a watery sauce.