Quick Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
Quick and simple, homemade roasted cherry tomato sauce – packed with flavor from fresh cherry tomatoes that caramelize and become wonderfully jammy after a quick stint in the oven. This even more delicious take on traditional tomato sauce is made with simple ingredients like garlic, olive oil, basil, and thyme, and you’ll want to make batches all Summer long!
We inherited several tomato plants upon moving into our new house. The sprawling, sagging beauties, top-heavy under the weight of their fruit, have happily delivered a generous yield over the last few weeks, and I’ve been harvesting the delicious house-warming presents with abandon.
The collection of mystery varieties includes about half cherry tomatoes, and I’ve taken to calling the entire lot of them simply Parker tomatoes (after the previous owners). As the plants are still dotted with dozens of yellow flowers – i.e. future tomato babies – and given that it’s already September (!), I harvested the remaining ripe cherries to make a roasted tomato sauce, thus preserving some homegrown tomato goodness for the coming months.
Why you’ll love this roasted cherry tomato sauce
Despite the natural sweetness of perfectly ripe summer tomatoes, a quick roasting still enhances and intensifies their flavor, and – along with some onion, garlic and fresh herbs – transforms the raw tomatoes into a fantastically rich and flavorful sauce. It’s the sort of sauce you’ll be happy to have on hand to brighten up a chilly day in the next couple of months, and totally worth the (minimal) hands-on effort now.
A couple of quick notes: I threw in some yellow and orange cherry tomatoes from the farmers market in addition to our red garden cherries – thus the lighter, orange-y color – but you can use any kind of cherry/grape/small tomato you’ve got. The sweeter the better.
Also, I prepared this roasted cherry tomato sauce to be stored in the fridge or freezer, but if you’re feeling ambitious, and want to tackle shelf-stable canning, Annalise has a great tutorial (and marinara sauce recipe), here. Happy cooking!!
Looking for more easy summer favorites? Try these next:
- Easy slow roasted cherry tomatoes
- Summer pasta with burst cherry tomatoes
- Summer squash grain salad with feta
- Easy pork chops with peaches
- A simple peach galette
If you make this roasted cherry tomato sauce be sure to tag me on Instagram with the hashtag #forkknifeswoon and leave a comment and rating below letting me know how you liked it! ★★★★★ Star ratings are especially helpful because they help others find my recipes too. xo, Laura
PrintQuick Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour 15 mins
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 mins
- Yield: About 4 pints/2 quarts 1x
- Category: Sauce, Dinner
- Method: Roasted, Blended
- Cuisine: Italian
- Diet: Vegan
Description
Quick and simple, homemade roasted cherry tomato sauce – packed with flavor from fresh cherry tomatoes that caramelize and become wonderfully jammy after a quick stint in the oven. This even more delicious take on traditional tomato sauce is made with simple ingredients like garlic, olive oil, basil, and thyme, and you’ll want to make batches all Summer long!
Ingredients
- 2–3 lbs cherry tomatoes, stems removed
- 1/4 cup good-quality olive oil, plus more for roasting
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 1 Tbsp fresh garlic, minced
- small handful of fresh basil leaves
- 3–4 sprigs, fresh thyme, stems removed
- kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400℉.
- Toss the tomatoes with just enough olive oil to lightly coat, then spread out in an even layer onto a rimmed sheet pan or large baking dish. Roast for 25-30 minutes, until the tomatoes have burst and are just beginning to shrivel. Remove from the oven, tent loosely with aluminum foil, and set aside.
- Meanwhile, add the 1/4 cup of olive oil to a heavy-bottomed sauce pot. Heat over medium-heat until the oil begins to shimmer. Add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to sweat and soften, about 4-5 minutes.
- Add the garlic, stir to combine, and continue cooking for another few minutes until the garlic is golden.
- Add the roasted tomatoes (including all of the cooking liquid in the pan), and the herbs, and stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
- Turn the heat down to low, partially cover the pot with the lid (leaving about a 1-inch gap), and let simmer for at least 25 minutes – and up to an hour – stirring infrequently as the sauce cooks.
- Remove the pot from the heat, and let cool for 10-15 minutes. (Carefully!) Transfer the sauce to a blender (or use an immersion blender), and blend until the sauce reaches your desired consistency.
- Pour the sauce into pint-size canning jars or other air-tight containers.
- Will keep for up to a week in the refrigerator, or 3 months in the freezer. Enjoy!!
Keywords: roasted tomatoes, cherry tomato sauce, roasted cherry tomatoes, summer sauce, freezer tomato sauce, easy tomato sauce, herb tomato,
Fabulous recipe! The family loved it and so did I. It’s easy, relatively quick and full of flavor.
I put whole, peeled garlic cloves in with the tomatoes while they roasted and eliminated the step of adding later. The garlic cooked beautifully. The addition of fresh, earthy herbs really complemented the sweet tomatoes.
I topped the finished pasta dish with more torn basil leaves and parmigiana reggiano.
Thanks for sharing this recipe! It’s a definite keeper!
★★★★★
Yum! Thank you so much, Teri!!
Hi! Is there a reason that you couldn’t roast the onion and garlic with the tomatoes? Thanks!
★★★★★
Hi Brooke! The garlic would likely burn in the oven and become bitter, but you could probably roast the onion along with the tomatoes as long as you keep it in large chunks or wedges instead of dicing. Enjoy!!
I made this today with a variety of cherry tomatoes I had grown. I didn’t really measure the tomatoes -just filled up my cookie sheet – but the recipe came out really good – I ground my own pepper and sea salt for this recipe – after it cooled I put it in the blender and it blended OK except for some of the skins. I made myself some soup with what was left in the blender (to sort of clean the blender) by adding 1/2 and 1/2 to it and reheated it – delicious! Except I did leave a few skin pieces on the edge of my bowl. Maybe if I had a better blender I wouldn’t get the pieces – anyway it was a great use of my cherry tomatoes!!! Taste was delicious – I will use the sauce for spaghetti or lasagna or…???
★★★★
Thanks, Rebecca! You can’t really overblend the sauce, so next time I would just blend for a little longer. An immersion blender is also helpful for getting the sneaky last bits 🙂
Can you can this recipe in a water bath?
Hi, Kira! I’m not an expert on self-stable canning (though lots of readers have successfully canned this sauce), but I would recommend adding some citric acid to be safe. If you don’t want to make any changes to the recipe, this sauce freezes wonderfully. Enjoy!
Awesome, thanks. Just what I needed to use up all the cherry tomatoes from the garden… Btw, don’t you get the skins off? I thought they are kinda chewy?
Hi, Lakshmi! I don’t remove them, they’ll get blended into the rest of the sauce. Enjoy!
Excellent.
I want to take the lazy way out, i.e. throw the roasted tomatoes into the Instant Pot with onion, garlic, basil, salt and pepper, and let the whole thing simmer on slow heat for a few hours. Hopeful it should work! 🙂
I LOVE THIS RECIPE! I planted WAY too many cherry tomatoes this year (rookie mistake) and I needed something quick to make. Voila! Easy prep, was able to use all garden vegetables and it came out tasting amazing!
★★★★★
Thank you so much, Tara!! 🙂
I’m a Nana and never learned how to can or freeze tomatoes. My kids are grown , out of the house now so cooking and trying different recipes. My husband and I aren’t picky. This sounds delicious. Laura , I’m not good with technology and I live how you take the time to answer everyone. I think that’s awesome and shows that you’re a kind person. How can I see other recipes of yours? That’s my be a stupid answer, sorry. I’m going to try this when we get back from vacation. Thank you and have a great day
Hi, Nana! Thank you for your sweet comment. You can find all our recipes here, and if you sign up for email updates (here), you’ll see the newest recipes as soon as they’re posted. Hope you enjoy the sauce and happy cooking!!
I made thus last year and canned and is amazing . We like to add about a half stick or less butter when warm up. It is amazing. My grandkids love it. And so easy and just add some seasoning when warm up ..
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Carla!!
What method did you can this with?? Pressure or hot water bath? How long?? Thanks in advance ☺️
We are so glad we found this recipe! We have been harvesting a lot of cherry tomatoes, but we were having a hard time finding good recipes to keep up with the harvest.
Our tomatoes are pretty tart, which turned out very tasty in the sauce. We added a ton of basil and thyme from our garden as well as a little bit of parsley and oregano. It was so good!
We are planning to make some more of the sauce as more tomatoes ripen and we are going to try using the leftover sauce we have for making a pizza tomorrow.
★★★★★
Thanks so much, G!! We love this sauce on pizza too 🙂
What can I use this sauce for? I have 3lbs of cherry tomatoes and want to try this sauce but I definitely dont know what to use the sauce for! Can you give me a few ideas please?
Hi Kelcie! You can use it with any pasta where you’d use red sauce (spaghetti, penne, lasagne, stuffed shells, ravioli etc.). We also love it as pizza sauce, and you can thin it with some stock or cream to make a really good tomato soup. Enjoy!!
So good! Fresh and the flavor is good. Has a perfect sweetness and creaminess to it (blended it to almost smooth). Will make again and again. It disappeared (made with rotini and zucchini). Yum!
★★★★★
Thank you so much, Tracey!! So happy it’s a hit 🙂
If I make the can airtight how long will this last on the shelf?
Very delicious recipe!! Thank you so much
Thank you, April!! As is, the sauce can be refrigerated for about a week or frozen for several months. But for shelf-stable canning, you’ll need to pressure can or use a water bath and add some citric acid to be safe. I’m not an expert on self-stable canning (though lots of readers have successfully canned this sauce), but I imagine it should be good for 9-12 months. Enjoy!!
We made this last year and LOVED it! I bought more plants this year, so I could make more. My question is this though. We have some ripening now and others still green and growing. Can I freeze the tomatoes and then thaw and roast later on once I have more?
★★★★★
Hi Grace! I’m so happy you love the sauce 🙂 I haven’t tried roasting previously frozen tomatoes. I’m not sure the texture would end up quite the same or get the same level of caramelization. Depending on how many you have now, you might get a better result by roasting just the tomatoes you have, freezing them with all the juices, and then combining a couple batches of roasted tomatoes with the rest of the sauce once you have enough. Hope that helps, and please update us on your results! Happy cooking!
I would go ahead and roast what you have and freeze in a ziplock bag, then when the rest are ready you can roast them. Then get the ones out of the freezer and combine with the new batch and cook them together in a pot before blending.
Thanks, Sharon!
Thank you so much for this recipe, it makes a really lovely tomato sauce.
I just made a second batch & added one pint of my home made chicken stock and it makes a wonderful tomato soup!
★★★★★
I love making this into a soup too 🙂 Thanks so much, Carole!!
I made this today with about 60 cherry tomatoes (from googling it sounds like that should be about 3 lbs). Though I got probably around a cup that was really thick by the last step. I added some water to be able to blend it as it was so thick.
What do you think I need to change to get the multiple pints of output do I need to heavily increase the amount of tomatoes?
Hi Ashley! I give a range because the weight and volume of your tomatoes will vary by size and variety, but 2-3 lbs of fresh cherry tomatoes should translate to about 7-8 cups, or enough to fill a large sheet pan (about 13×18). I just checked a pint of store-bought cherry tomatoes we had – there were 32 and that weighed about 2/3 of a pound, so for that size it would be something like 125 cherry tomatoes. Of course another type might be larger/smaller. I would definitely start with more tomatoes next time though and you should get a saucier result 🙂 Hope that helps!!
I made this last week, to go with toasted ravioli. It was absolutely perfect! Just put some of the sauce and bowls and dip the ravioli in it.
Oh yum! Thank you, Robyn!!
Super yummy but very very thick. What’s the best way to thin it out a bit? Will adding a little water water the flavor down too much?
Hi Eleanor! If it’s cooked down that much, it should be concentrated enough that thinning with a little water or broth will be fine. Enjoy!!
Tomato jam for round French bread crackers. Outstanding!!
★★★★★
Yum! Thank you, Lisa!!
Made it yesterday. Yum. So good and so easy. My husband loved it too. Thank you.
★★★★
Thanks, Dee!! So happy you enjoyed it 🙂
I started making this last year and absolutely loved it. I just made more and the flavor is amazing but there still a lot of skin pieces left over. I’m using the same immersion blender I used last year. Suggestions on how to blend it better? I don’t have a great traditional blender.
Hi Dot! So happy you liked the sauce! You definitely don’t need a traditional blender. Are the cherry tomatoes a different variety this year? The skins can vary in thickness. My best tip when using an immersion blender is keep the blender moving around pretty continuously, and sometimes transferring the sauce to a deeper pot/container can help. I find immersion blenders take a little longer to get completely smooth but you can’t really over-blend this sauce. If all else fails, some readers do strain the skins (but I find that to be a pain). Hope that helps, and enjoy!!
Do you need to remove the skins?
Hi Jessica! I don’t remove them, they get blended right into the sauce. I’d only worry about it if the skins are really thick and tough. Enjoy!!
This was amazing! My husband and I couldn’t stop eating it!
★★★★★
Yay! So happy to hear it. Thanks, Jessica!!
Can i water bath can this if i add some citric acid to it
Hi Jay! I’m not a canning expert, so unfortunately, I can’t make recommendations about how much citric acid you’d need or the water bath process. But, many readers have successfully canned this sauce, and it also freezes really well if you’d like to go that route. Enjoy!!
To assure a safe acidity level, add bottled lemon juice or citric acid to each jar before processing. Place 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice or ½ teaspoon citric acid crystals in the bottom of each quart jar before filling with the tomato product. Use half those amounts when canning in pint jars.
Thanks, Rosemary!!
I made this last week, to go with toasted ravioli. It was absolutely perfect! Just put some of the sauce and bowls and dip the ravioli in it.
Made this for my family tonight and it was a hit! Followed the directions, but omitted the thyme springs because I didn’t have any. Still DEVINE!
Yay! Thanks, Meredith!
We are so glad we found this recipe! We have been harvesting a lot of cherry tomatoes, but we were having a hard time finding good recipes to keep up with the harvest.
Our tomatoes are pretty tart, which turned out very tasty in the sauce. We added a ton of basil and thyme from our garden as well as a little bit of parsley and oregano. It was so good!
We are planning to make some more of the sauce as more tomatoes ripen and we are going to try using the leftover sauce we have for making a pizza tomorrow.
★★★★★