Roasted Tomato Sauce

Roasted tomatoes are the secret for the most incredibly delicious sauce. Roasted Tomato Sauce is so easy to make and has the best flavor. The tomatoes caramelize and get sweeter and more concentrated as they roast. A little garlic, olive oil and fresh herbs complement the tomato flavor so well.

Serve this sauce with some pasta, or use it as a base for many other recipes. This is the perfect recipe to make the best use of an abundant tomato harvest. The sauce can be canned or even frozen, so it’s great to make many batches to stock up for yourself and to share with others.

There are some staple recipes that you just have to have in your repertoire. Tomato sauce is one of them and roasted tomato sauce brings it up a notch and makes it extra special. Jarred tomato sauce is convenient, but making homemade tomato sauce is SUPER easy. This recipe is really delicious, since the tomatoes are roasted, which gives them a big boost of caramelized flavor in addition to the flavors of fresh vegetables and herbs.

I love that you can adjust the flavor of homemade food to suit your own liking. You can add onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and a myriad of different herbs to the sauce. My favorite flavor combination is very simple – tomatoes, garlic, herbs and olive oil. It’s so yummy, I could just eat it with a spoon, and I sometimes I do just that:). 

Ingredients For Roasted Tomato Sauce:

During the summer when the stores, farms and gardens are overflowing with gorgeous fresh produce, take advantage of the abundance of tomatoes and make some sauce; you will be amazed by the depth of flavor of homemade sauce.

Tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, ground black pepper, fresh herbs – thyme, parsley, basil.

You can also add some onions or celery to the sauce. Bell peppers, hot peppers are also great additions. Carrots work really well in a tomato sauce too, but they cook longer, so start cooking them first and then add the rest of the vegetables.

How To Make the Roasted Tomato Sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Take the seeds out of all the tomatoes. Here’s an tip about an easy way to seed tomatoes.  If you’d like, blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for a few seconds, then plunge them in ice water to peel off the skin. I don’t bother taking the skin off, because it disintegrates after I puree the sauce at the end anyway.
2. Roast the tomatoes. Coarsely chop the tomatoes and place them on a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and add the minced garlic and the thyme. Nestle the thyme in the tomatoes; it you leave them on top, the herbs will burn. Oregano is also another great herb to use with tomato sauce. Roast the tomatoes in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until the tomatoes are tender and are golden and charred in spots.

3. Puree the tomatoes in a food processor to your desisted consistency.

4. Add fresh herbs and drizzle in more olive oil.  

5. Store the sauce. The roasted tomato sauce can be refrigerated for up to a week, or frozen up to 6 months. You can also put it in sterilized jars to make it shelf stable.

What To Use the Tomato Sauce For:

It’s wonderful to have a few jars of your own homemade sauce on hand. You can use the sauce in so many different recipes. One of the most simple is with some pasta and a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese on busy days, and all the way to Lasagna, Eggplant Parmesan, Cabbage Rolls or served with Meatballs. 

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