How to make the perfect creamy pasta sauce at home, revealed

I have a soft spot for suburban strip mall red sauce joints. Here's everything you need to know to make the perfect creamy pasta sauces at home: Watch your heat Dairy and non-dairy products with higher fat percentages, such as heavy cream and coconut cream, are less likely to curdle over heat, to the point where you could boil both straight and they would likely simply thicken. A note on non-dairy cream sauces Certain non-dairy milks and creams react to heat better than others — as is on display whenever you add cold non-dairy milk to a hot cup of coffee. Coconut cream achieves the right texture right off the bat, but the taste may not be quite what you're looking for in a pasta sauce. However, one of my favorite non-dairy hacks for getting a thick, creamy sauce is simply adding a tablespoon or two of dairy-free cream cheese to the sauce in its final minutes of cooking.