Roasted Tomato Sauce Recipe (Easy, Freezer-Friendly & Perfect for Garden Gluts)
A glut of tomatoes from the garden is never a bad thing! In fact, too many ripe tomatoes is my favourite problem to have. Late summer in my kitchen means cooking, preserving, freezing and eating tomatoes in every way possible.
One of the best tomato sauces I’ve ever come across was inspired by The River Cottage Book of Preserves. I’ve made it countless times, with little variations depending on what I have to hand. Sometimes I freeze it in portions, other times I process it into Kilner jars for a shelf-stable sauce.
Today I made a divinely rich, glistening roasted tomato sauce which we enjoyed over fresh pappardelle pasta. The rest went into the freezer in single-serving portions, perfect for a quick supper at a moment’s notice.
Ingredients for Roasted Tomato Sauce recipe:
- Ripe tomatoes (any variety; halve larger ones)
- Shallots or onions, finely sliced
- Garlic cloves
- Fresh herbs (I used thyme, basil and marjoram)
- Olive oil
- Salt and black pepper
- ½ teaspoon sugar
Method: Preheat the oven to 200*C, gather up your selection of ripe tomatoes, cut the larger ones in half and place them cut side up in a baking dish. Finely slice some shallots or onions, a few garlic cloves and some herbs (I used thyme, basil and marjoram because that’s what I grew this year), and sprinkle them on and around the tomatoes. Add salt and pepper, a few good glugs of olive oil, and half a teaspoon of sugar.
Pop the pan into your hot oven, for about 30-40 minutes, or until you want to cry with happiness at the smell, or when the tomato skins just start to catch. Like this:
Next, we need to separate the pulp from the skin and seeds. The best way to do this is to use a food mill (moulé), but if you don’t have one of those then pushing them through a sieve will work too. The result is this beautifully rich sauce:
From here, you have so many options. For tonight’s supper I fried some chorizo in olive oil, added a ladle of the sauce, and served it over parpadelle fresh egg pasta, with griddled sourdough and grated parmesan cheese. I always add a glug of the pasta water to any sauce I’m having with pasta. It makes it silky and glistening.
I also use this sauce to make roasted tomato ketchup, as a base for curries, or as a pizza sauce. Try it, you won’t be disappointed!