Make Sonia’s Roasted Tomato Sauce for the freezer, in minutes! *recipe*
Are we still talking about tomatoes here at Old Depot Farm? Are we still picking heirloom tomatoes and putting them on the back porch in cardboard flats, and are we still canning them? Not to mention slicing them up and covering them with blankets of cottage cheese (with freshly-ground pepper on top) for our lunches, and are we still cutting them up and adding them to salads and stir-fries and all that?
And are we making roasted tomato sauce for the freezer, and are we still–after a couple of months of this–still excited about all this tomato-over-the-moonness?
Yes, yes we are.
I personally never get sick of these gorgeous, tasty orbs of delight. Now I can’t speak for my children. Perhaps there is a certain tomato weariness that I’m just beginning to sense from them at this point . . . as we lug one more load of 5-gallon buckets from the garden, filled to the brim with these gorgeous tomatoes. Maybe.
Here’s a recent picking of tomatoes, headed toward the kitchen.
Nevertheless! I love having a steady supply of heirloom tomatoes from my garden to eat and cook with. I realize what a treat it is to have bowls full of cherry tomatoes (and grape tomatoes, and currant tomatoes and pear tomatoes) for snacking on the kitchen countertop, too, not to mention for impromptu snacking when I’m outside.
No wonder I’m never hungry when I come in from the garden. 🙂
After an unusually fair (read: not brutally hot) summer, the weather finally warmed up to a nice punishing heat in August and the tomato plants (which crave heat) took off great guns and we’ve had a glut ever since. I use the word “glut” here in the fondest possible way. Glut is good, where heirloom tomatoes are concerned!
Once we started school in September, time became a bit more precious around here, and I had to get a bit more focused on my tomato putting-by-ness. I hate to waste veg that I’ve worked so hard to raise. But canning tomatoes takes time. Making and canning salsa takes even more time. But roasting fresh heirloom tomato sauce for the freezer, I can do almost with my eyes closed and in minutes. An infant could make this sauce. Almost. It’s so fast and easy that I nearly do a jig of joy when I’m finished. My lovely daught-in-law Sonia makes a version of this sauce and I developed this recipe per her instructions.
So if you love this sauce as much as I do, you can direct your exuberant shouts of joy in Sonia’s direction. And, Gentle Reader . . . you’ll love this sauce.
Not only is it so easy to make that you can practically make it with your eyes closed, but since it’s roasted, it concentrates the flavors of the tomatoes and onions and garlic and herbs and whatnot in a lovely way, and it retains its fresh taste because you pop it into the freezer when it’s done. (Of course you could just boil up a big pot of pasta and eat it when it’s hot and coming out of the oven. It’s all good.)
There are lots of great-looking tomatoes at the farmer’s markets around here, so if you’re not a gardener, you can still make this sauce for your freezer. And yes. You do want to make it. 🙂
Here’s my sauce, ready for the oven.
Here’s how:
- 12 cups ripe tomatoes, cored and cut into large (about 1″) chunks
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 4-6 cloves garlic, smashed and diced
- 1/4 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
- 1 or 2 Tbs of your favorite dried tomato sauce herbs, such as rosemary or oregano, or a mixture (optional, but so good!)
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- freshly ground pepper, to taste
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and pull out two jelly roll pans. Combine tomatoes, onion, garlic, and herbs in a large bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with the salt and pepper. Toss until everything is coated with oil. Transfer to jelly roll pans (or pyrex pans, but don’t use aluminum or cast-iron) and spread so the mixture is about 2″ thick. Put into the oven and slow-roast until the sauce has reduced to about half from its original volume. This should take, probably, two hours or more, but keep an eye on it, so it doesn’t burn. Remove from the oven and let it cool. When it’s cool, transfer to freezer containers (my batch made 3 quarts) and put into freezer. Now! Don’t you feel clever? That’s because you are!
I wish you could smell my house while this sauce is roasting! Oh, it smells just glorious, and I know that when the snow is falling and the wind chills are scary, I can pull out a container of this sauce from the freezer, heat it up, pour it over some steaming hot pasta, and it will bring back the brilliant, warm sunny fall day when I made it! Such an easy meal, too!
YUM.
Happy, happy tomato sauce roasting, Gentle Readers!
Here’s the sauce after it has cooked down a bit.
And here’s a quart all ready for the freezer . . . BOOM! Done!
If you have folks around you who prefer a smoother sauce, you can pop this into the blender when it’s cool. Pro tip.
Now you can face those last few tomato pickings with joy, Gentle Reader. Happy sauce-making! and . . .
*hugs*
26 thoughts on “Make Sonia’s Roasted Tomato Sauce for the freezer, in minutes! *recipe*”
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You can never have too many dishes with fresh tomato. I long to be in a position to store roasted tomato sauce. This recipe is wonderful and I shall be using it 🙂
Hope you like it, Anita-Clare. It’s so simple to make and so good!
looks wonderful I would like to put some up in the freezer, alas, no oven, a freezer that is so small I can only make ice in it, and the tomatoes are at the farmers market which I visit on Sundays. Of course that means we will be having pasta with roasted tomato sauce next Sunday evening…………
Let me know how you like it, Chef! (I’m sure the ocean view makes up for the smallish freezer!)
Ugh, too bad the tomatoes are pretty well done from our garden. Will have to pin this for next year!
Do try it next year, Wendy!
Yum! Printing it out. Give it a try! Thanks!
Hope you like it, Brook!
Awesome Amy, love it! I have dried most of mine and saved a few for fermenting and raw chutney 🙂
Yum, Cher, I’d love to taste the raw chutney. Do you have a recipe?
Yummm, I can smell it now. And I just might grab a taste before you put it into the containers. I can’t wait for the invite this winter to come over for dinner.
Shawn,
Consider yourself invited! It is scrumptious!
Looks phenomenal! I would definitely want to warm that up on a cool evening!
Yes, Gigi!
Good info. Thanks. I just picked all my tomatoes because it frosted last night and I’m trying to save them by ripening them inside. If they survive, I’m going to use this recipe and can the sauce.
Val, good idea. I do like it frozen because it tastes so fresh that way.
Actually, Amy, this sauce would be glorious with flounder, tilapia, or cod…
More healthy, too!
Roy, that’s an awesome idea. It would be good over chicken, too, I’m thinking.
I love your fresh raw tomato picture. It looks like the plastic tomatoes my niece play with, so tempting. I should visit your garden to get some. Anyway, the recipe will be great for variation of menu here. Thank you for sharing.
Come visit, Adelien! I’ll share! 🙂
I wish I had a glut of tomatoes. Sigh!
But I can almost smell yours. Thanks for sharing.
Our tomato season is over here in upstate NY – but there is always next year. This sounds fantastic and I’ve pinned it. Thank you for sharing. My mental taste tester gives this five stars.
Gorgeous! We were only saying yesterday that we need to grow more tomatoes next year – as we picked the last of this!
Thank you, Caro! You’re very sweet!
Next year when I have a garden I will do this on my smoker grill and the tomatoes will have a Smokey flavor! Yumm! We did that with a batch of salsa one year made it Smokey and really enjoyed it!
Sarah, that’s a terrific idea! That smoky taste, I would think, would be great in this sauce . . and so many things! Thanks for the tip!!