Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

This easy Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce has a deep, rich, and slightly smoky flavour with hints of sweetness from caramelized onions and garlic. Garden fresh herbs and seasoning bring a bright and well-balanced taste that pairs perfectly with pasta, pizza, or any dish that calls for tomato sauce.

Summer is the BEST time to be preserving all things tomato. From Roma Tomato Passata to Chunky Canned Salsa, there are so many ways to capture the essence of tomatoes.

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

In late July, August, and September my tomato plants are full of ripe fruit. We eat Cherry Tomato Caprese Salad almost every second day and on the days we don’t, there’s Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce. I usually use Roma tomatoes, but I’ve also used cherry tomatoes (or a variety of pear, grape, and cherry tomatoes) to make roasted cherry tomato sauce.

The beauty of this recipe is the ease of preparation. There’s very little chopping involved, and the smell of roasting vegetables is incredible. Roasting the vegetables concentrates their flavour and reduces or eliminates the amount of simmering time usually required by most tomato sauce recipes.

Once the vegetables are roasted all it takes is a quick blend using a food processor, blender, or an immersion blender. The result is a bright, flavourful, and versatile tomato sauce that is delicious in any dish that calls for pasta sauce.

The flavour of this sauce is second to none. It tastes like a combination of vine ripened San Marzano tomatoes, herbs, and aromatics touched with a bit of sweetness from the caramelization. More importantly, it tastes like someone’s Nonna slaved all day over a stove, stirring and tasting the sauce until it reached perfection.

How to Select Tomatoes for Sauce

A great sauce starts with ripe fresh tomatoes like Roma or San Marzanos. These two varieties are popular because they have a drier meaty texture and less seeds. They also contain a higher amount of pectin than other tomato varieties, which gives body to the sauce.

Other great varietals for sauce making are plum or paste tomatoes like Hungarian Heart tomatoes (which are very large and meaty), Jersey Devil, SuperSauce, Rutgers, Oxheart, Russian Big Roma, and Margherita. These tomatoes tend to have an oblong shape, dense fruit, few seeds, and contain very little water.

When buying tomatoes, look for firm, heavy tomatoes with a bright colour and no soft spots or wrinkles. Vine ripened tomatoes are the most desirable as they will have the most flavour but avoid over ripe tomatoes. Smell them… they should have a sharp, fresh smell like tomatoes!

Ingredients for Roasted Tomato Sauce

These are the basic ingredients for a classic roasted tomato sauce. However, there are some minor adjustments you can make to balance the flavour according to your taste preferences. If the sauce is too tart, adjust it with granulated sugar and salt. If it is flat, add a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. Feel free to replace the freshly ground black pepper with red pepper flakes for a bit of spicy heat.

In addition to the usual sauce ingredients, you will need a baking sheet or roasting pan, a food processor, blender, or immersion blender. This recipe is easily doubled or even tripled (depending on how many baking sheets fit in your stove). 

• Roma Tomatoes
• Onion
• Garlic
• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Italian Seasoning
• Parsley
• Basil
• Sugar

Feel free to add roasted red bell peppers, carrots, or zucchini to add extra depth and sweetness to the sauce. Simply roast them alongside the tomatoes and blend everything together. If you like a spicier kick, adding a roasted chili or a pinch of red pepper flakes will enhance the flavour. This sauce is very adaptable, so feel free to experiment with your favourite veggies.

Italian seasoning contains mostly dried herbs like basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and marjoram although sometimes it also contains sage and fennel seeds. For an easy Italian seasoning mix, combine 1 Tablespoon dried Basil, 1 Tablespoon Dried Oregano, 1/2 Tablespoon dried Rosemary with a pinch each of Thyme and Marjoram.

In addition to the Italian seasoning, use fresh parsley and fresh basil in this recipe. IMHO, you can’t have tomato sauce without basil! 

How to Make Roasted Tomato Sauce

To begin, preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with aluminium foil.

Prepare the garlic by slicing about ¼ inch off the top of the head to expose the tops of the cloves, then place it inside a layer of aluminum foil. Place the onion quarters, garlic bulb, and halved tomatoes cut side up on the baking sheet, leaving the garlic exposed for now.

Drizzle all the vegetables (including the garlic) evenly with olive oil, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Toss gently to coat. Wrap the entire head of garlic in aluminum foil, making sure it’s fully covered.

Roast vegetables in the preheated oven for about 40-45 minutes, or until they become soft and slightly caramelized. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow the vegetables to cool slightly.

Transfer the roasted tomatoes, onion, and garlic to a blender or food processor. Remove caramelized garlic by gently squeezing each clove out of its pocket. Add garlic and sugar to the blender/food processor. Blend until smooth.

Add fresh parsley and basil to the blender or processor. Blend until only small flecks of green remain. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning with additional salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, or herbs if needed.

How to Adjust Sauce Consistency

One of the biggest issues with roasting tomatoes and sauce making is variation in sauce consistency. If the tomatoes are juicy, the sauce will have a thin watery consistency. If the tomatoes are meaty or dry, the sauce may be too thick. Even the same variety of tomatoes will produce different amounts of juices during the roasting process.

The best way to control consistency is to deseed the tomatoes. Yes, it is extra work and may seem wasteful, but it produces a more consistent sauce and eliminates seeds. If using cherry tomatoes, simply squeeze the insides out into a container. You can freeze the seeds and extra juice and use them later in soups and stews.

Otherwise, adjust the consistency by either cooking the blended sauce over the stove to thicken, or adding chicken broth or water to thin it out.

Preserving Large Batch Tomato Sauce

When the tomatoes are plentiful, use this recipe to make and preserve batches of tasty sauce for meals to come. Simply scale the recipe up, starting with the tomatoes and according to available oven space (you can roast the vegetables in multiple batches).

Once the blended sauce reaches the desired flavour and consistency, cool it to room temperature. Next, divide the sauce into meal size portions and store in airtight containers in the freezer for up to 12 months.

To make shelf stable roasted tomato sauce, gently bring the sauce up to a simmer and follow these instructions for water bath canning.

Hi! I’m Bernice Hill and I am the recipe developer, photographer, and writer at Dish ‘n’ the Kitchen. It is my pleasure to share easy to follow recipes that are delicious, nutritious, and approachable for the whole family.

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