Get the Recipe: Roasted Tomato Marinara Sauce
Easy homemade marinara sauce, starting with roma tomatoes that are oven roasted with garlic, olive oil and herbs, then blended and frozen. No peeling or canning required!
Ingredients
- 5 lbs fresh roma or plum tomatoes
- 4 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half lengthwise
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar, optional
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano leaves
- 2 teaspoons dried basil leaves
- 1 teaspoon fine salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F. (non-convection)Cut roma tomatoes in half lengthwise (no need to remove the stem bit). Place in a large roasting pan (mine is 11x16-inches and a couple of inches deep.) Scatter garlic over-top. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle with oregano, basil, salt and pepper. Toss with a large spoon to coat.
- Place in preheated oven for 60-70 minutes, stirring well half way through cooking. The mixture shouldn't dry out completely and some of the tomato skins will char slightly. Stirring well half way through ensures that nothing gets too dark. Allow to cool.
- Remove tomatoes from pan (if there is a lot of liquid in the pan, use a slotted spoon to remove, leaving most of the liquid behind). Blend in a food processor or use immersion blender to create a sauce with your desired chunkiness level. If I'm making a large batch, I tend to do a few smooth and leave a few chunkier.
Notes
Cooking time and nutritional information is PER BATCH. I love to buy a 20lb box of roma tomatoes in late Summer and roast off 4 or 5 batches in a day, then package up and freeze. Then I'm all set for the Winter with fresh homemade marinara sauce!
Tips!
- I like to make this marinara without adding butter or onion, as it keeps the sauce as basic as possible and I can always add those things to the dish I use the marinara in.
- For an efficient way to make big batches, double the recipe and cook two pans at a time in the upper and lower third of your oven, rotating the pan position half way through cooking. Hopefully you have two large roasting pans to use (I sadly didn't). If not, you can always do them one at a time.
- You may find large pieces of tomato skin as you blend the sauce that you can remove if you like. I just leave them in and process them down to smaller sizes.
- This sauce freezes beautifully. Simply portion into 1 or 2-cup freezer bags, seal and smooth flat, then freeze them all stacked up.
- I noticed that each batch ended with a little bit more or less liquid left in the pan. If there was a lot, I scooped the tomatoes out of the pan with a slotted spoon, to leave most of it behind in the pan.
Serving: 1serving, Calories: 172kcal, Carbohydrates: 23g, Protein: 5g, Fat: 8g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Sodium: 611mg, Potassium: 1365mg, Fiber: 7g, Sugar: 15g, Vitamin A: 4725IU, Vitamin C: 78.6mg, Calcium: 70mg, Iron: 1.9mg
Tried this recipe?Leaving a review is always helpful and appreciated by fellow cooks!
