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
- Preheat oven to 300°.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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).
- 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!
- Open the garlic packet and squeeze the cooked garlic out of the skin and into the tomato mixture.
- Add broth, herbs, and balsamic vinegar and process until desired consistency is reached.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste, and add a little sugar, or more balsamic as needed.
- 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.
- Let cool completely and then store in the fridge for a few days, or in the freezer for several months.
Making a thick concentrate
You can easily control the consistency of this sauce with the amount of broth you add. I purposely make mine quite thick, almost like a tomato paste. It takes less room to store and I can customize the consistency when I’m ready to use it.
- For a traditional pasta sauce, add your thick sauce and then add pasta water to desired consistency.
- Leave it thick for pizza sauce or spreading on a hot sandwich.
- Add broth to thin down for an incredible roasted tomato soup.
- Use it as a base for soups and stews
Storage Tips
This sauce freezes beautifully. I make this frequently in the summer and stock it in the freezer to use throughout the coming year. Remember to write the date and quantity on your package! There are many storage methods, here’s a few that I like:
- I spoon the thick sauce into foodsaver bags and flatten out before sealing the bags. I love how nice and thin they are to store. These also defrost very quickly. Of all the storage methods, this vacuum sealing will stay the freshest, longest!
- I like using my Souper Cubes silicone freezer trays to make measured portioned. I transfer the frozen cubes into freezer bags.
- You can also just flatten it into a freezer safe zip top bag.
- You can freeze in glass mason jars.
Frequently Asked Questions
If storing in the fridge, I recommend using within 4-5 days. If vacuum sealed, I’ve used packages from a year in the freezer and they taste great. If frozen in zip-top bags, I’d aim to use it within 6 months for the best flavor,
Definitively! I still like to keep it tomato heavy, but people have told me they’ve roasted zucchini or other squash with the mix and you can definitely do that.
Fresh herbs are best in this recipe, but if needed, you can sub dried herbs. In general, for every 1 tablespoon fresh herb, you’d sub 1 teaspoon dried.
Roasted Garden Tomato Sauce
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 lbs tomatoes see note if you have a large batch of tomatoes
- 2 carrots
- 1 medium onion
- 3 tablespoons olive oil more if needed
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 6-8 tablespoons beef broth
- ⅓ cup chopped fresh herbs I usually do about ¼ cup basil, ½ tablespoon minced rosemary, 1 tablespoon minced oregano
- Additional salt and pepper
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- optional if needed: ½ – 2 teaspoons sugar
Roasted Garlic
- 1 head garlic
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300℉
- Slice tomatoes in half or 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.
- Place everything on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange everything in a single layer, with tomatoes sitting skin-side down.
- For roasted garlic, 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 sealed pouch. Place foil pack on baking sheet with tomatoes.
- Roast in the oven for 2-3 hours, until everything is tender and tomatoes appear slightly shriveled. (In my oven it almost always takes 2 ½ hours).
- Remove from oven and let cool slightly. Place roasted vegetables in a food processor (or high powered blender). Add broth, fresh herbs, and balsamic.
- Open garlic packet and squeeze all cloves into the food processor. Process until desired consistency is reached. You can make this silky smooth, or leave some textured veggies if you like.
- Season with salt and pepper, add additional broth for consistency. If needed, add a little sugar, or a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.
- Let cool completely and then store in the fridge for a few days, or in the freezer for several months.
Notes
- This is a small one-pan batch. If you have lots of tomatoes make multiple pans and just rotate them half way through cooking.
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You can easily control the consistency of this sauce with the amount of broth you add. I purposely make mine quite thick, almost like a tomato paste. It takes less room to store and I can customize the consistency when I’m ready to use it.
- For a traditional pasta sauce, add your thick sauce and then add pasta water to desired consistency.
- Leave it thick for pizza sauce or spreading on a hot sandwich.
- Add broth to thin down for an incredible roasted tomato soup.
- Use it as a base for soups and stews
Questions & Reviews
I froze some tomatoes to use for salsa but had too many–could frozen tomatoes somehow work with this? I’m guessing no but thought I’d ask!
Normally frozen tomatoes don’t roast too well, and if you roast them without defrosting, it’s going to add a ton of water. It might be more of a simmered sauce. I might let them thaw and squeeze them out a bit? You’ll lose the skins but if you feel like experimenting, it might work!
I made this today and LOVE it! It was so easy and so delicious! Thank you for being a reliable source for great recipes.
Wow. That’s all I can say about this recipe. It’s a keeper for sure. My whole family loved it.
I love this recipe! This past summer I made extra batches, minus the herbs and broth, and froze it. Do you think it would work for a lasagne? Any advice? TIA.
Yep, totally!
This sauce is truly standout – it’s EASY (I mean how much simpler can it get – I use grape tomatoes and I don’t even bother to cut them in half) and the taste is so decadent and complex. The only thing I changed, because I’ve made this twice, is that I personally don’t care for the beef broth/stock. The second time around I made it with veggie stock and that worked better for me. I just ate this over zoodles with garlicky roasted shrimp and a sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan. Wow. Didn’t miss the pasta a bit! I am going to turn the leftovers into a vegan roasted tomato soup tomorrow by combining the rest of the sauce with the leftover veggie stock. Thanks for a keeper recipe! Love your site, use it a lot as a “go to” for recipes that don’t disappoint.
I made this today and it is AMAZING. I could just eat it without noodles or anything else. Thanks for the awesome and super easy recipe!
I actually use it for tomato soup all the time as well. Just add broth (I use beef broth) until it’s the consistency you like. So good!
Have you tried roasting zucchini with these veggies too? I have a ton of zucchini I need to use. Just wondering how it would affect the flavor?
You could definitely add zucchini. It would just add extra moisture. I might roast my zucchini on a separate pan so I could drain off any excess water before combining with the tomatoes, but it should taste good (in fact, I might do that myself; I have tons of zucchini too!)
Ok, great! Thanks! 🙂 Would you then roast the zucchini at a higher heat for less time, or do the slow roasting method too?
Ya know, either/or. For the sake of ease I’d probably just do them low and slow like the tomatoes, just watch them to see when they’re done.
I really want to try this recipe, but I don’t have a food processor or a food mill. Is there anything else I can use instead?
A blender would work as well!
I really want to try this recipe, but I don’t have a food processor. Is there anything I could use instead of it?
Thanks!
Laura
You could use a blender, just make sure to pulse and not puree. Or you could just chop finely as well 🙂
This sauce was AMAZING!!!! I’ve tried making spaghetti sauce in the past and it was okay, but this was superb!!! I’ve made it twice and both times it came out great. I have to admit the first time I made it I might have used some over ripe, sitting in my fridge, a little mushy tomatoes to supplement what came out of my garden and it didn’t make a difference in the taste. I love it when they get almost burnt because it just tastes so sweet!! Thank you ladies AGAIN!!!