While farmers markets are overflowing with fresh ripe summer tomatoes, take advantage of the season and make roasted tomato marinara sauce. Skip the stockpot and pull out your roasting pan for richly concentrated, flavorful roasted tomato sauce. Enjoy it tonight or freeze it for the months to come.
In late summer when prices are low, I'll bring home twenty pounds (double batch) of fresh tomatoes and make roasted tomato (or my easy homemade marinara sauce).. Roasting tomatoes concentrates the natural sweetness of the tomatoes, garlic and onions. Extra sauce freezes well for easy dinners in colder months to come. There is nothing like the flavor of your own homemade tomato sauce. It's a lot of tomatoes but it's an easy recipe.
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Ingredients
For a full batch with a yield of 7-8 cups of sauce, here is what you need:
- 10 pounds fresh tomatoes
- 16 cloves of fresh garlic (2 heads)
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Dry red wine (optional)
- 1 bunch fresh oregano or fresh basil (or 2 tablespoons dried)
- 2 medium onions
- Sea salt
- Ground black pepper
- Red pepper flakes
Ingredient Notes
Some people add a little sugar to offset the acidity of the tomatoes but I don't think this recipe needs it. If you prefer to add sugar, try a teaspoon (or use monk fruit).
Another nice add is a tablespoon or two of balsamic vinegar. To use dried herbs instead of fresh herbs, use a dried Italian seasoning blend.
Types of Tomatoes
So what's a good tomato for this sauce? I look for Roma tomatoes and the heirloom varieties, especially Brandywine and Purple Cherokee (a purple beefsteak). Red beefsteak tomatoes are good too. Buy what looks best and a mix is great for homemade pasta sauce. For more info on varieties of tomatoes read this.
Wine or Not
Why add wine? Because the wine gives it more depth of flavor, it enhances and intensifies the flavor. When I cook with wine I use the mini airline size bottles so I don't have to open a big bottle or when a bigger bottle is nicer (and more expensive) than I want to cook with. If you don't want wine in a recipe, just omit it.
Roasting Pans
Use one large roasting pan (like you use for a turkey) for a half batch or two large roasting pans for a full batch. For a full batch with one roasting pan, split this recipe into two batches. If you have double ovens or one really large oven, you might be able to do two pans at once with two roasting pans. If you only have one pan, try borrowing a second from a friend.
Don't use disposable, uncoated aluminum pans. The acidity in tomatoes reacts with the aluminum with the possibility of leaving an unpleasant metallic taste.
While the long terms effects of aluminum leaching into foods it not fully known (there are conflicting reports), acidic foods like tomatoes are better off in stainless steel or anodized aluminum.
Anodized aluminum roasting pans work because the manufacturing process hardens the metal making it non-reactive.
Instructions
- Pre-heat a hot oven to 425°F
- Wash the tomatoes and core them, depending on variety. Beefsteak and heirloom tomatoes have bigger cores. If you are using Romas, no cores.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with a clean kitchen towel and lay the tomatoes out while you work on them.
- Next, chop the tomatoes into larger chunks. Roughly chop onions and peel garlic cloves.
- As you chop them, place tomatoes, onions and garlic into the roasting pans
- Add olive oil, herbs, wine, salt and pepper and toss with your hands to mix.
- Roasting time is approximately 1 hour, depending on how juicy tomatoes are. Roast until the tomatoes and onions are a shriveled with some browned edges, and still some juice in the pan bottom.
Tip - Don't cut the tomatoes too small as smaller pieces roast faster. You want them to develop flavor.
Chunky Sauce or Smooth
After roasting, pour everything carefully into a food processor or blender and puree. For a chunky sauce, do a few pulses. For a smooth sauce, process for a little longer. Your preference.
Another tool option, use a stick blender (immersion blender). They are a handy tool that takes up a lot less kitchen space than a food processor or high powered blender for smaller kitchens. Be sure to puree in a tall pot in the kitchen sink to reduce splatter (and wear an apron!).
How to Store and Freeze
The sauce will keep in the refrigerator for 5 days in an airtight container, or freeze for several months. I prefer glass jars over freezer bags as bags can leak or puncture and they are plastic. A mason jar or ball jar work fine. When you fill the jars, don't fill them all of the way to the top. Leave just a little head space for expansion. To thaw frozen sauce, place it in the refrigerator overnight, pour into a pan over medium heat with a lid on until it's hot. On of my favorite things to label jars with is these removable labels. They work great.
To Serve
Serve over your favorite pasta noodle. It's a good basic spaghetti sauce, or for penne or rotini (corkscrew). For a low carb dinner, serve over zucchini noodles. It also makes a terrific pizza sauce.
Related Recipes
This sauce is terrific with my ricotta and kale stuffed shells recipe. If you love mushrooms, try this homemade marinara sauce with mushrooms. For more roasted tomatoes, try these oven roasted cherry tomatoes with fresh thyme.
Tomato Canning Notes
I used to can this sauce with a pressure canner so it was pantry stable. Now I just freeze the finished sauce.
Low-acid foods, such as tomato sauce, should optimally be processed using a pressure canner, not a water bath. Only a pressure canner can reach the 240 degrees necessary to safely process low-acid foods (a ph value greater than 4.6).
For instructions on preparing canned tomatoes, check out these resources:
- From the Ball site
- From Simply Canning
📖 Recipe
Roasted Tomato Marinara Sauce
Equipment
- Stainless steel roasting pans
- Food processor or blender
- Double ovens or split the batch into two
Ingredients
- 10 pounds fresh tomatoes
- 16 large whole garlic cloves, peeled
- ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ½ cup dry red wine optional
- 6 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves or 2 tablespoons dried
- 2 medium onions roughly chopped
- 1-2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar optional
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
- ¼-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes optional
Instructions
Pre-heat Ovens
- Pre-heat the oven (s) to 425 degrees (218C). Get out two large stainless steel roasting pans (like for roasting a turkey).
Prep Tomatoes
- Wash the tomatoes. Depending on the type of tomato, you may need to cut out the core first, as with large Beefsteak or Heirloom varieties. Then, cut tomatoes into large chunks. Don’t cut the pieces too small. Big chunks are good. Smaller pieces might roast too fast.
Roast Tomatoes
- Place tomatoes in the roasting pan. Add garlic cloves, oil, wine or broth, oregano, onion, salt and pepper. Toss with your hands. Place pans in the oven (s) and roast until tomatoes have reduced and are starting to get a few black edges. The pan should still have some juices, not be dry. Depending on your oven it should take 45-60 minutes. Stir half way through. If the tomatoes are really juicy, it may take longer.
Cool and Puree
- Remove pans from oven, set on the stove top and allow to cool until you can handle it. Carefully transfer the roast tomatoes into a food processor and pulse 5-6 times. You can also use a blender and proess in batches. Serve or cool completely and freeze in portions.
Ali Wilson says
I found this recipe 2 yrs ago (I think) and my family loves it! Over the years I have fine tuned it to our taste buds. I add basil and halve the oregano, double the fresh cracked pepper & I use a dry white wine as I never have red in my house. I grow my tomatoes and this year specifically planted San Marzano's along with Amish paste just for this recipe. So far we have been extremely happy with the taste. Cooking my third batch tonight. Thank you for sharing which cookware to use. Someone else mentioned that, it's so helpful. Having the right cookware and using the right cookware are very different 🤔
Sally Cameron says
Thanks for commenting Ali. So glad this has worked for you and how you've tuned it up for your family. I use whatever wine I have too, but here's a good little trick. If you ever want to use red wine to cook with, just get a little 4-pack of airline size bottles for such use. They work great and it's usually what I use for cooking. I just had a raised bed garden built and am looking forward to hone grown tomatoes next season. And I'm glad the tops help on cookware and tools too! Happy cooking.
Jennifer says
I love this recipe. I was a bit short on tomatoes last fall after I picked the last ones before the snow fell, but had some eggplant from my garden too. Tossed that in to make up the difference, and it was amazing. Froze it instead of canning. Was just as good later.
Sally Cameron says
What a great add! Thanks for commenting Jennifer. Bet it is delicious. I am waiting for summer tomatoes to make more.
Kristin says
What do you this for? Ad a spaghetti sauce?
Sally Cameron says
Hi Kristin. I'm not sure I understand your question. If you mean do I use it as a spaghetti sauce, then the answer is yes. I use it over spaghetti, penne and others kinds of noodles, and with zucchini noodles for a low carb noodle. You can also use it for a baked egg dish like Shakshuka. Good to bake shrimp in too then pour it all over the noodles. Hope that helps. If not, please let me know.
Erin says
Hi Sally,
I had your recipe pinned for a long time and this year we have a bumper crop of tomatoes I put all the ingredients on a cookie sheet; roasted everything in the grill. What a wonderful taste!! My husband is going to love it. I then place it all in my big pot to blend with a hand stick blender. This is my first-time to make marinara. I will be pressure canning this wonderful, flavorful recipe. Thank you so much for sharing. This is a keeper!!
Sally Cameron says
Love to hear that Erin and what a great idea on grilling! Thanks for your comment so others can try it too!
Lacey says
When you blend the tomatoes, do you add everything from the roasting pan including the garlic or do you just pick out the tomatoes?
Sally Cameron says
Hi Lacey, blend it all, everything from the pan. Garlic gets sweet when it roasts and it gives this sauce great flavor.
Cara Hagar says
Hi Sally. I've made this recipe a couple of times this summer and love love love it. The do it a bit differently. I don't like tomato skins, so I clean slice and weigh the tomatoes first, and then I broil them for 3-4 minutes. The skins wrinkle up and are easily removed. Then, because I use a combination of roma type (Amish Paste) and heirloom (Brandywine & Big Beef) tomatoes, mine tends to be very juicy. So juicy that they would take forever to cook down. So I pour whatever juice has collected in the pan after broiling but before I start roasting (obviously before I put the other ingredients in) and I reduce that in a saucepan. I add the garlic, etc and roast the tomatoes, adding the reduced sauce to the finished tomatoes. Absolutely divine. By removing the skins I also don't have to put mine in a blender. I can do that later if I wish, depending on the recipe, or I can add some fresh basil and put this very rustic/chunky sauce on toasted french bread. Out of this world good!! Thanks so much for posting this recipe - it's the best one I've found.
Sally Cameron says
That's great Cara! I love to hear what people do to make recipes work for them, and it sounds delicious. Thanks much for explaining what you do for the benefit of others readers!
Kathy L says
Why could you not use a water bath? Have made sauce in this manner for years without any problems.
Sally Cameron says
Hi Kathy. There is debate over canning tomato products because tomatoes are low acid. Most sites I've read say to pressure can tomatoes for food safety reasons. The high heat of a pressure canner wards off any potential contaminants. Some say you can do it safely the old fashioned method by adding bottled lemon juice or powdered citric acid. pH test strips can be used to determine acidity. There is a good post here from the Ball canning site on the water bath method http://www.freshpreserving.com/basil-garlic-tomato-sauce-%7C-recipes-for-tomato-sauce-%7C-ball-preserving-br1045.html#q=tomato%2Bsauce&start=6
rMary Lynn says
Hi there! Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe!! I made a giant batch today with tomatoes and herbs from our garden and it turned out beautifully! Delicious and full of flavor. For those asking about pressure canning, I have a Presto weighted pressure canner and I canned 5 qts for 25 min with 10 lbs pressure. You would do pints for 20 min with this particular type of PC. Thanks again for such a flavorful recipe!
Sally Cameron says
Thanks for your notes Mary! I'm sure it will help other readers! And how lovely to have a garden with homegrown tomatoes.
Anna says
Hello and thank you for this recipe. Is it possible to use an electric roaster as opposed to the oven? Or does it have a deeper flavor when using the oven? Thank you
Sally Cameron says
Hi Anna. As I do not have an electric roaster, I have not tried that but think it would work fine, if its a big one with enough space. The reason I use the big roasting pans in the oven is they provide enough surface space (and are shallow) for the tomatoes to roast off the moisture and concentrate flavors. I am sure with er way it will be delicious. Please report back if you try it.
Tricia says
I made a double batch of this in the fall and froze it when the tomatoes at the farmers market were plentiful. I was digging through the freezer this weekend looking for more and realized that I only had 1 small container left!
I had also frozen a bunch of plain tomatoes so today I made another batch! LOVE this simple but delicious recipe! Thanks so much
Sally Cameron says
Yeah! Love to hear that it works for you. Thanks for commenting back and letting me know Tricia. Makes me smile!
Willie says
I've been making this for a few years now - the best marinara sauce EVER! Why would anyone in their right mind peel tomatoes if they don't have to?! Or stand at the stove stirring something almost guaranteed to stick? I'm just crazy busy and this recipe really suits my style - carefree and fabulous! I use two stainless steel cookie sheets (don't have 2 roasting pans) and switch top and bottom, half way thru cooking. They are piled over the lip of the cookie sheets when they go in, but cook down. When they are done and cooled a little, I throw them in my blender (easier clean up than the processor - do you see the pattern here... ) and blend just a couple pulses in small batches. Then I can them up and enjoy them all winter. Romas have worked the best for me.
Sally Cameron says
Thanks for sharing what you do Willie! Love that you use cookie (rimmed baking) sheets. Great tip for others who may not have two roasters. And yes on the blender versus a food processor. If I can't get heirlooms, Romas work great, you are right.