Roasted Marinara Sauce
Sitting in a restaurant at the beginning of September, I overheard a waitress ask another customer, “How was your summer?”
He replied, “So far, so good.”
It made me smile. So far? Doesn’t he realize that school buses loaded with backpack-clad children are rumbling down the street as he speaks? Or maybe instead, kids have started their Zoom classes and online learning? #2020
The more I thought about it, though, the more I had to agree with his present-tense assessment of summer. Despite the fact that school has started, early September really is prime summer time here in the Northwest. The days are comfortable and hazy. And our gardens and produce markets are bursting with fruits and vegetables of every shape and size.
This tomato sauce recipe features fresh produce that can be pulled out of your garden or piled into your grocery cart right now: tomatoes, garlic, onions, and basil. The tomatoes can be those sweet little cherry tomatoes or the big ugly fellas (who still have great personalities). Or a combination of the two.
Drizzle in some olive oil and a generous sprinkle of salt to round off the super simple ingredient list. Add a loaf of crusty bread and a fresh salad and dinner is served.
And the steps? They are so fast and easy. What? Are you rolling your eyes right now?
If making homemade tomato sauce calls to mind standing over a bubbling pot, stirring your afternoon away, think again. Other than piling all of the fresh ingredients into the pans, this recipe requires very little hands-on time. If you have a couple of 9×13″ baking pans, a knife, and a blender or food processor you are good to go.
You can adjust everything to suit your own tastes. If you prefer a thinner sauce, bake just until the tomatoes start to burst and break down. If you like a thick, hearty sauce, then keep the pans in the oven longer, stirring occasionally. The ingredients will simmer down to a slightly sticky, sweet sauce. Once it’s pureed with the fresh basil, the sauce will be bursting with flavor and you will be swearing off store-bought sauce for life.
Up to your eyeballs in tomatoes right now? This is a great recipe to make in big batches and freeze for later use as pasta or pizza sauce or soup base. You can freeze it in containers or bags pressed flat to stack easily in your freezer.
This is definitely one of my favorite things to have stashed away in the freezer to create hot pizza, lasagna, or soup on those gray winter days. It instantly takes me back to the best days of summer. You know, September.
Roasted Marinara Sauce
The amounts listed in this recipe are just a good place to start. Adjust the ingredients to suit your tastes.
Ingredients
8 c. cherry tomatoes or 24 medium tomatoes
2 medium onions, quartered
8-10 garlic cloves, peeled
olive oil
salt
basil leaves
1-3 cans tomato paste, optional
- Wash and stem the cherry tomatoes or wash and core the whole tomatoes. Split them evenly, in a single layer, between 2 9×13″ baking dishes. The larger tomatoes can be left whole; they will break down during the roasting process.
- Toss the quartered onions and peeled garlic cloves evenly between the two pans. Drizzle with olive oil and season generously with salt.
- Roast at 425 for 30-40 minutes. The timing isn’t an exact science. The combination will smell incredibly fragrant, and the tomatoes and onions will look wrinkled, roasted, and slightly charred. For a thicker sauce, cook longer and stir occasionally to keep from burning.
- Remove the pans from the oven and set on the counter to cool for 10-15 minutes.
- Place a large colander inside a large bowl and dump the pans into the colander to strain out the juice. Set the juice aside.
- Scoop the tomato mixture into the bowl of a blender or food processor; add the basil leaves. Puree until it reaches the desired consistency. Dump the pureed tomato sauce into the reserved juice and stir until thoroughly combined. Season with additional salt, if needed. (You could also add tomato paste if you desire a thicker sauce.)
- Serve immediately as pasta or pizza sauce or freeze in plastic containers or bags for later use.
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i accidentally bought all cherry tomato plants this year and have been kicking myself. Now I have a plan for all of them. Thank you!
I made this for a cauliflower pizza crust with some goat cheese tonight – it was lovely!
Hi! this recipe is the best and sure beats the old fashioned cooking, straining and then running through the tomato press! My only regret is that I didn’t have any canned jars of this in the pantry. Do you know if this recipe would be suitable for canning instead of freezing? Thanks, Anne
No, this cannot be canned. Because of the onions, garlic and oil, it is just not acidic enough for safe canning.
Hi! I just got off the phone with the OSU extension / food preservation office and received safe guidelines for canning this recipe for roasted marinara. For those of you interested in canning, you must add to the recipe 4 TBLSP of bottled (not fresh) lemon juice. You must NOT add more than 2 TBLSP of olive oil to the roasting pan. Do not adjust the onion/garlic ratio, nor add any other vegetables to the recipe. Roast the vegetables as the recipe states, then puree the mixture out of the oven in a Cuisinart. Put pureed contents into a pot on the stove, and warm the sauce to a simmer. Simmer the sauce 10 mins, and THEN add the lemon juice. The OSU gal also said she would add 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar to the pot for flavor and an extra acidic boost. She then said we MUST process in a water bath: 35 min for pints and 40 min for quart size jars. This is a new length of processing time (vs. older recipes you may have), due to the fact that the engineering of tomatoes (both grown and store-bought), has reduced the acid levels of tomatoes drastically. Hope this helps anyone who may want to can their sauce! I’m making mine tomorrow! 🙂
Thank you so much! Great information.
Anne, thank you so much! My sister and I made this and canned it because of your research, and I also shared it with my canning FB group page. Looks like a few of them intend to can it as well. Thanks!!
I know that this is after the fact, but yes, you can can it. And you can add extra veggies too. This recipe is very similar to many found in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. With the onions, garlic,and oil (plus any other veggies, meat, whatever) you need to pressure can it to be on the safe side. I would not water-bath this. If in doubt, just pressure can it as you would a meat product and you’ll be fine.
Doing up a huge batch tonight.
I made this today. I am always wondering what to do with the abundance of cherry tomatoes I get every year. I added 1/4 cup of red wine before roasting this in the oven and I have to say this is the BEST marinara I have tasted. It could easily be a soup if you added some chicken broth and more salt. Next year I will plant even more tomato plants even though I thought about scaling back before I found this recipe!
We’re so glad it was a success!
I made this recipe. Then put sauce back into oven to boil off more of the juice. ( thicker sauce). Then put it in pint jars and hot water bathed them fr ten min. After I baked the sauce the flavor was amazing. O ya I add a 3/4 cup brown sugar and some other seasonings:-)
This is such a yummy sauce! My entire house smelled AMAZING while all the delicious veggies were roasting. I added a lot of basil and kept the sauce think by adding 1 can of tomato paste and none of the liquid. Next time I think I’d add even more garlic. Other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing. Thanks for the recipe!
Could I can this? If so what times would you recommend it for? Thanks!
I’m planning to share the steps for canning tomato sauce next summer! You can’t can just any tomato sauce recipe because you have to watch acid levels (which you probably already know). I use Ball’s recipe for Basil-Garlic Tomato Sauce which is super similar to this one, though. It has you add 1 T. bottled lemon juice to each pint jar and process for 35 minutes. Pints are the perfect size for sauce on 2-3 pizzas!
This is absolutely the best sauce I’ve ever tasted! I don’t typically love marinara, because it’s either bland or too acidic. This is deep, rich, roasted heaven. I never even thought of making my own sauce, but I’m a convert now. I only wish I’d made a double batch, so I’d have more to enjoy at a future date. I also love your nearly fool proof No Knead bread. I’m dipping a freshly baked slice into the marinara and am borderline giddy. 🙂 Heartfelt thanks for all the great recipes and practical resources.
Oh my, I’m starving right now and that sounds SO GOOD!!
Has anyone tried to make Tomato Bisque using this marinara recipe as a base? If so, what did you add?
I often use this as a base for tomato (or other) soups! The ingredients suit it perfectly. If I do tomato soup, I usually just add some chicken or vegetable stock and add salt, as needed.
I tried this today and it turned out delicious. I strained out all the juice and kept it for winter soups. I wish I’d thought to add in some zucchini! Next time…and there will be a next time.
I’m a novice in the kitchen and this turned out fantastic. My 3 yo tasted it and proclaimed, “It’s good!” I’m freezing both the juice and the sauce for use later on. Thank you for posting this easy recipe.
I used this recipe two years ago and canned all of it up. I did a large batch and it was very yummy. Even a year later ….. This year I think I will add some other veggies too to help with vitamins. thanks
How much extra lemon juice did you use to can it? I think I’ve seen both 2 and 3 tablespoons per quart…
Maybe my planter box garden will be better organized next year and produce more tomatos. I planted them too closely this year and didnt train them well. They are tall, but not as fruitful. Still, we are happy with out first year of a real box garden. Havent bought tomatoes for 8 weeks.
It is also great with eggplant &/or zucchini added in-whatever you have !
My mom just brought over a bunch of homegrown tomatoes last night, and I hadn’t even finished the last batch she had given me. I was thinking I should look up what to do with them, and then I find this in my inbox today. Must be fate. Can’t wait to try it. Thanks!
Do the tomato’s need peeled? or do they just get chopped up in the food processor?
You don’t need to peel them-one of the great parts of this recipe. I have been making it for about a year now & love it!!
This is my second year using this recipe and it turns out awesome. I add in sliced carrots to roast, and it gives the sauce a sweeter taste. I end up adding garlic powder to taste while blending. I also add about 1/8 a cup of sugar (for 5 cups of sauce). Using cherry tomatoes I do two pans at a time and get a total of 10 cups (I don’t drain the liquid). I freeze 2 four cups bags (for a batch of spaghetti) and a two cup bag for pizza sauce.
I just finished making this pasta sauce. I now have 5 one gallon bags full of pasta sauce in my freezer. Had fun making chunky kinds of sauce as well as more blended bags. Varied the thickness of sauce by adding either no sauce to 3 ladles full back into the blender. Got chunky sauce by pulsing my blender only.
I am a 22 year old male and this was SO EASY!
Started with 15 lbs of tomatoes ($.99 lb) , 6 Onions, Basil (farmers market $4.95) and garlic.
Cooked before I went to bed. Turned off after 40 minutes. Let it stay in the cooling oven all night.
Got busy the next day so I left it in the oven for another day until I could get to it.
This morning I strained and bagged my sauce.
They are freezing flat as displayed in this post I found:
http://www.southernliving.com/food/how-to/how-to-freeze-and-store-soup-00417000075414/
My mother in law kept watching curiously over my shoulder for every step. MMMM was her verdict upon tasting COLD spaghetti sauce.
Thank you frual living NW for continueing to simplify my life and save me money.
I drained the juices and reduced the juice to almost a syrup then added it back into the sauce with 3 sm cans of tomato paste and a few other tweaks and it is fab. It is nice to know what is actually in your sauces! thx
could the veggies be grilled? or smoked in a Traeger?
I canned mine. Looked for a recipe that was almost identical. So used this recipie. Added three tablespoons of lemon juice in each quart and processed 40 minutes.
This is so good that I’m eating it by the spoonful right now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to buy sauce from the store again.
After making this sauce four times in the past two weeks, I just thought I’d throw in my two cents worth on how I solved the issue of what to do with the extra liquid. I boiled chopped carrots and using the roasted liquid, pureed them and added them to the sauce. One batch I made it used up the entire amount of liquid, on another batch I had to add in some cans of paste to get it to the desired consistency. I’ve also added chopped up pieces of zucchini and roasted them along with the tomatoes, onions and garlic. Didn’t bother peeling them. The only thing I noticed that was different about adding the zucchini was that the flavor seemed more acidic/bitter with it in there. After adding in all sorts of Italian spices to no avail, we decided that it needed a bit of sugar. Sure enough, it made it taste perfect. With all the good home-grown veggies my family will be eating with this sauce, I’m not worried that they’ll be getting a bit of sugar along with it.
This is literally one of the best things I’ve ever found on the internet. I was feeling overwhelmed by how many tomatoes were coming out of our garden (I know, a rough problem to have lol), and don’t always have the time to can (which I’ve been trying to do with the bigger ones). I can throw this in the oven, half forget about it, strain it, blend it, and rejoice that I just added a couple more tubs of the best marinara sauce I’ve ever tasted to my freezer with close to zero effort! AAAAAMAZING!
Thank you for this recipe I was wondering what I was going to do with all he cherry tomatoes we have. And this looks like a breeze to make.
Also can I Can this marinara sauce?
No, you cannot water bath can this recipe due to e oil and lack of additional acid in the recipe. Check out this website for guidelines on canning tomatoes – http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can3_tomato.html
My ball blue book says it’s fine to can as long as you add lemon juice.
I pretty much just use my pressure canner now days I’m so freaked out by getting sick. Is it safe to use it for this? I hope so because I already did it! I added a bit of lemon juice though to make sure. I have tomatoes coming out my ears! I have 8 different plants and they did awesome this year. This was such an easy way to make sauce and I want to make sure it will be okay with the pressure canning way. I have a garage freezer but it’s filled up with salmon, steelhead, pumpkin, and zuchinni right now so no room for freezing anything else this year. Well unless we get eating!! To make sure though how long is it recommended to boil it after opening to kill anything left behind??
If anyone knows how to convert this to canning, I would be interested!! 🙂
I bet the leftover juice would be great to make rice! Mmmm
This is incredible. Has anyone tried making it with minced garlic?
Yes, I am using bottled minced garlic this year, and it’s been a nice shortcut when dealing with multiple pans.
2 teaspoons = 1 clove so just decide how much you want in each batch and sprinkle it in your pans. Works (and smells) great!
oh my!!!! The smell in my house is AMAZING!!!!
I just made this sauce tonight, it is delicious. Like some said before, the sauce would have been to runny if I have added the juice. I am keeping it for a soup later on this week though, that precious juice is not going down the drain! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I made this tonight and OMG it’s yummy. I only made 1/2 a recipe to try it out and it turned out great. I used a combo of Roma’s and grape tomatoes. Before I mixed the liquid back in I strained out the seeds. Totally pinning this one.
I just made this today and it turned out really sweet. Does anyone have any ideas how to mellow out the sweet flavor??
Think it was the type of tomatoes you used-try using different types in different combinations. I also added zuccini and eggplant. Was really good!
Mine came out really acidic & from everything I’m reading online it sounds like the tomatoes are probably the culprit. I added in a bit of honey & some extra salt. It still is a bit acidic but I don’t want to mess with it too much. Maybe I’m just not used to home-made marina sauce! LOL
Did you use aluminum pans when roasting your tomatoes? Tomatoes react with aluminum. Try it again using glass or ceramic baking dishes.
I just made this from our first harvest of homegrown black krims, and OMG IT’S AMAZING! Thank you, thank you for posting this exactly when I happened to need it! It was so good, I licked the blender, hahaha.
I only added half of the liquid back in, and had quite a bit left over, so I froze it and hope to use it as a soup base this fall- anyone else done this? Any other ideas? It was just too tasty, I couldn’t part with it.
It would be great in soup-I was thinking the same thing. My Grandma and Mom are great soup makers-& they put all kinds of things in their soup. If you boil beets -that juice/water is great too-really from any vegetable-then you are keeping the vitamins.
Do you puree the skins of the tomatoes or take them off after roasting?
Nope! No blanching or peeling required. I guess they add to the texture/flavor of the sauce, but you really do not notice the peels after pureeing the tomatoes in the blender/food processor.
I just did this with some tomatoes that have been sitting on my counter for a week and were starting to get too soft! It’s delicious…and even if it weren’t I’d want to do it because of how lovely it makes the house smell! Thanks for the recipe…I’ll have to make bunches more this weekend.
what fabulous pics! The sauce and process looks sooo yummy!
How long will this last in the freezer? Can you jar it as well? We just found a farmer locally who will sell us 60lbs of tomatoes for .60/lb and am so looking forward to making this recipe!
Mine never lasts long enough! I’d say easily 6-9 months. After that you might notice a decrease in quality.
Here is some good info on canning tomato sauce: http://www.foodinjars.com/2010/08/canning-101-why-you-cant-can-your-familys-tomato-sauce/
It comes down to safe acidity levels with tomatoes. It is definitely possible. You just want to find a recipe that adds in lemon juice or vinegar.
thanks, Em, I was wondering the same thing. I think I canned them last year, but only a couple quarts, so thankfully no one got sick. will definetely freeze this year!
I think that if you add one tablespoon of lemon juice to each pint jar you intend to fill, or two tablespooons for each quart jar, then fill the jars, seal them and immerse them in a boiling water bath for 40 minutes (water one inch above the jars), that should adjust the acidity so that you should be able to can this sauce.
Jodie~ where are you getting your tomatoes? I’m looking for a place…
This is the link where I found the tomatoes. Since we bought over 60lbs she gave us a deal.
http://portland.craigslist.org/clc/grd/2584073853.html
Good luck!
pat=part. Sorry-I’m trying to do this now, and I’ve got wet fingers.
just the stem
Thank you, Wynter!
My kitchen smells soooo good right now!
Non-cook question:
Does coring mean taking out the seeds, or just the stem pat?
This is just what I need right now to use my veggies. Thanks so much!
Wow…this receipe sounds wonderful. I will have to try it sometime!
This sounds easier & quicker than the pot boiled method I use.
I also like to put eggplant and zucchini in my sauce-the zucchini because at this time there usually is lots of it and the eggplant really adds to the taste I think. Another added benefit-if it is puried all together my son will like it and then eats all these vegetables, he otherwise wouldn’t like! For myself-I like it chunky also. Sometimes I will also mix it 1/2 & 1/2 with canned sauce-I like the sausage type and then I have some meat too.
I’ve also added carrots and peppers before. This is currently the only way my children will eat vegetables…
It does make you feel good to know they are getting such a nice variety also!
By the way the pictures are beautiful-as I have all the ingredients in large quantities right now, think I will make some soon. This is very motivating (thanks-I can use that)!
I basically just made this same recipe, but used the crock pot. I think my taste buds almost revolted, there was so much flavor. How will I ever go back to store bought??
Melody, Can you share how you do it in the crockpot please? I would much rather do it in there then on the stove or oven.
Thanks.
I just followed this recipe: http://onceamonthmom.com/marinara-sauce-a-la-seaton/
Very similar flavors to Emily’s, but I was able to leave it in the crock pot while we were gone all day. I added several diced green peppers and used fresh tomatoes (blanched, peeled and seeded) instead of canned.
This is our second summer making this recipe and we often don’t add back in the drained liquid. It’s too runny for our taste if we add it all back in. AND it still tastes wonderful! Just a FYI. 😉
My husband likes a thicker sauce, too, but I can’t bear to toss all that flavorful liquid. So I usually just cheat and add 3 cans of tomato paste. 🙂
I do not add back the juice since we like thicker sauces. However, I do freeze the juice separately and add it to vegetable beef soup. Yum.
I’ve made this a few times, and if I do drain the juice off I save it for soup as well. (I made it once with only cherry tomatoes and there was no draining needed!) No way I’m throwing the flavor packed liquid out, and it’s a great supplement to broth that freezes great.