Roasted Garden Tomato Sauce

This hearty and flavorful garden tomato sauce is made by roasting tomatoes with a handful of other ingredients in the oven.  They get blitzed up into an incredibly richly flavored sauce that has a variety of uses. I make this in the summer, when my garden tomatoes are at their best. I’ll make it thick, almost like a concentrate, and store it in my freezer to use all year long. You can use it as a traditional pasta sauce, thinning with pasta water as needed, or spread it on a pizza or crostini. It also makes an amazing tomato soup with added broth. This recipe is very hands-off, easy to make, and you don’t have to peel your tomatoes first!

Note: This is not a canning recipe.  It’s great to stock up on and store in the freezer, but if you want a recipe that has been tested for home canning, you’ll find my favorite, here. 

Ingredient Notes

• Tomatoes – Gather up any variety of fresh tomatoes. I prefer larger plum tomatoes or romas. You can make this with smaller varieties like cherry tomatoes, but it tends to produce a rather seedy sauce so I generally like to avoid these types.
• Carrots – Carrots add a natural sweetness and depth of flavor to the recipe. They’re pureed and unrecognizable in the finished product but add a lot to the overall sauce.
• Onions – Sweet yellow onions are my favorite in this recipe, but any variety of onion will work just fine
• Fresh Garlic – A whole head of garlic gets roasted along with the vegetables.
• Fresh Herbs– The herbs are very flexible. I grow basil, rosemary, and oregano, so that’s what I use.
• Beef Broth – This might sound like a strange ingredient for tomato sauce, but beef broth brings out great flavor (and doesn’t taste beefy in the finished product). You are welcome to use vegetable broth instead.
• Sugar (optional) – Sometimes tomato sauces need a little sweetener for a well rounded flavor. I go by taste and add a small amount of sugar if needed. A sweet balsamic can also do the trick.
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive Oil
• Balsamic Vinegar

How to Make Garden Tomato Sauce

1. Preheat oven to 300°.
2. Slice medium tomatoes in half or larger tomatoes in quarters, making them all roughly the same size. Chop carrots in half lengthwise and then in 1-2 inch pieces. Chop onion in large pieces, about 1-2 inches. The point is to have everything cook evenly here at the same pace
3. Place everything on baking sheet and drizzle generously with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange everything in a single layer, with tomatoes sitting skin-side down.
4. Cut top ⅓ of whole garlic head off and discard. Place garlic on a piece of foil and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Pull sides of foil up and secure into a little pouch.  Place foil pack on baking sheet with tomatoes.
5. Roast in the oven for 2-3 hours, until everything is tender and tomatoes appear slightly shriveled. (In my oven it almost always takes at least 2 ½ hours).
6. Remove from oven and let cool slightly. Remove the garlic packet and set aside. Scrape all the rest of the baking pan contents into a food processor (or high powered blender). Use a spatula to scrape off all bits and oil from the pan- lots of flavor there!
7. Open the garlic packet and squeeze the cooked garlic out of the skin and into the tomato mixture.
8. Add broth, herbs, and balsamic vinegar and process until desired consistency is reached.
9. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and add a little sugar, or more balsamic as needed.
10. At this point, you can customize your consistency. I like to make mine thick, almost like a paste or concentrate.  It’s concentrated in flavor this way, and takes less room to store! See my notes below about consistency and why you might want to make it thicker or thinner.
11. Let cool completely and then store in the fridge for a few days, or in the freezer for several months.

Frequently Asked Questions