Easy Roasted Tomato Sauce Using Fresh Tomatoes

This year our garden yielded a lot of tomatoes. I mean a LOT of tomatoes. And honestly, it’s by accident! We had been throwing tomatoes scraps into our compost and we think that some of the seeds from the scraps survived and germinated in our garden beds this year. We have heirloom tomatoes growing (those were actually intentionally planted by me), cherry tomatoes, and Roma tomatoes. I’ve made lots of salads with them, salsas, sandwiches, but it felt like we were never making a dent in our abundance of tomatoes.

Finally, someone recently suggested to me to make a tomato sauce for pasta with them and I honestly have no idea why that idea never crossed my mind before! We normally have spaghetti, often with a marinara and sausage, every other week, and it’s always bothered me that so many store bought spaghetti sauces have so much added sugar and sodium! This is a great way to be able to have total control over how much added sugar (none in this recipe!) and salt is in your tomato sauce.

If you know how/have the ability to can things, this would be a great way to use a large harvest of tomatoes and be able to have homemade tomato sauce all year round. I personally don’t have canning equipment, but you could put it in a jar or ziploc bag and freeze it to be able to use it later on.

This sauce would be GREAT in my Sausage and Bell Pepper Linguine recipe! Just use it instead of added canned crushed tomatoes, and maybe don’t blend it super smooth.

All I did was roast some Roma tomatoes and fresh garlic cloves on a silicone mat lined baking sheet. I drizzled with some olive oil and seasoned with kosher salt and fresh black pepper.

Once the tomatoes looked jammy, I added in a handful of fresh basil (also of which I have an over abundance in our garden) and roasted everything for just a couple more minutes. Once I let everything cool, I added it all to a blender and blended until I reached my desired sauce consistency.

It’s just that easy! I’m so excited to be able to fill up my freezer with homemade sauce now and finally be able to put all of our fresh tomatoes to good use.

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Roasted Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

• 12 small roma tomatoes
• 5-6 fresh garlic cloves
• about 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• kosher salt and fresh pepper
• 1 handful fresh basil

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425°F

2. Wash the tomatos and cut thrm in half. Add to a parchment paper lined pan (or use silicone liner). Add peeled garlic cloves and drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and fresh pepper.

3. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until tomatoes are jammy. Add the basil for the last couple minutes of roasting

4. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before adding everything (including any juices) to a blender and blending until smooth or desired consitency is reached.

5. You can use immediately, store in a jar in the fridge for a few days, or store it in the freezer for longer!

Recipe Notes

Roma tomatoes are best for this because they aren't as watery, but I have added in cherry tomatoes before!