Are you being overrun with homegrown summer tomatoes yet? Then you need to make this sauce! Freeze it, and you’ll have little portions of summer to use as needed in any tomato based dish!

After defrosting, the sauce can used as-is in any soup, stew, casserole or stove top recipe calling for a can of diced tomatoes. It could be spruced up a bit to make spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, enchilada sauce, dipping sauce, shakshuka, or the sauce for meatball subs to name just a few possibilities! It will make everything taste amazing 🙂

Use your homegrown, vine-ripened, flavorful tomatoes all year round without wasting a single one!

Still want to use your fresh tomatoes? I have recipes for a Fresh Tomato Tart, Caprese Garlic Bread, Fresh Tomato Lasagna, Brie on the Grill, and Homemade Ketchup on this website 🙂

Roasted Tomato Sauce

INGREDIENTS

All ingredients are estimates. Feel free to add more or less, depending on what you have on hand. Seven or eight pounds of tomatoes? Use them all. Only 5 lbs.? Don’t worry about it. Less celery, more onions? Go for it. Hate celery? Leave it out. More carrots might make the sauce a tad sweeter. Desirable? It is for me, and I like carrots. Have extra basil, fading green onions or even a extra zucchini? Throw it in. I wouldn’t mess with the vinegar though.

• 6 lbs. tomatoes, cored and quartered OR chopped if very large
• 1½ cups finely chopped carrots
• 1½ cups finely chopped celery
• 1½ cups coarsely chopped onion (yellow, brown, red…any onion)
• 9 garlic cloves, chopped
• 6 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 bay leaves
• 1-2 teaspoons dried thyme OR 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh
• 1-2 teaspoons dried oregano OR 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh
• 1-2 teaspoons dried basil OR ¼ cup chopped fresh
• 1-2 teaspoons dried parsley OR ¼ cup chopped fresh
• 1½ teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. Place all ingredients in a large roasting pan—the one used to roast a turkey—OR 2 rimmed baking trays.
3. Roast for 45 minutes or until all veggies are soft, then cool before proceeding to the next step.
4. Remove the bay leaves!
5. Process briefly in a food processor or blender, leaving mixture slightly chunky. Taste. Need more salt? Add it now. A bit too acidic? Add 1/2 teaspoon of sugar, and slowly increase as needed. Have some leftover pesto (a few Tablespoons or up to 1/4 cup?) Stir it in now, but don’t stress if you don’t have any.
6. Freeze in 2 cup portions.
7. Use as needed in sauces, spreads, soups, casseroles etc.
8. Need a 16 oz. can of tomatoes, use your 2 cup portion of Roasted Tomato Sauce.
9. If you want to substitute for a 16 oz can of commercial tomato sauce, also use this. You might have to thicken the final product a bit. If so, bring the end product or the end sauce to a boil, and stir in approx. 2 tsp. cornstarch mixed with 1 Tablespoon water, stirring constantly. The sauce will thicken almost immediately.

Makes approximately 8 cups of sauce.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today. Enjoy your freezer bounty for the next 6 months or more.