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,
Amazing, super easy recipe, thank you!
★★★★★
Please give me this recipe in cups and tablespoons
Excellent recipe but my yield was nowhere close to 4 pints. I had just over 2 lbs in tomatoes and got barely a pint and a half.
I have five large Ziploc bags full of cherry tomatoes from my garden last year that I haven’t decided on the use for yet. Would this recipe work for them once they’ve thawed?
Excellent, flavoursome, easy recipe for cherry tomatoes.
I usually grow tons of bigger tomatoes (Ferline) and make 80 to 100 jars of sauce each year, my favorite being Puttanesca. I therefore skin these larger toms when making sauce so I was excited to fine this cherry tomato recipe that didn’t remove skins (that would have been fiddly). It worked beautifully as I had a large quantity…it’s all in the roasting! I usually eat all the cherry toms like sweets but now it’s worth having excess for cooking. Thanks
★★★★★
Hello! I am wondering, do I put the basil and thyme on the tomatoes before roasting them or in the pan with the garlic and oil mixture?
The recipe says to mix the herbs with the tomatoes in the pot
I have a question: with so many seeds in the cherry tomatoes, would it be okay to run them through a strainer (or food mill) and then cook it down a little more? Or is it best to just blend them, along with the skins, together into the sauce?
★★★★★
I made this a few weeks ago with my Sungolds and used an immersion blender. The skins and seeds blended smooth (I was prepared to put the sauce through a mill but didn’t need to).
★★★★★
Live in Scotland and I started to get a bit of a glut of cherry tomato’s and so I found your recipe and followed it to the letter except I I halved the amount as I didn’t have enough tomato’s. Well I’ve cooked my own sauce before but this one is gorgeous and I think the difference is the roasting of the tomato’s first. Going to fry some chopped up chorizo tomorrow and add to the sauce and toss through some pasta. Thank you so much.
★★★★★
this sounds so good with the chorizo! I’m adding this to my list. thanks Gay
Made this for the first time. It is AWESOME, could eat it by the spoonful. I followed the recipe as is with one modification; I added garden jalapeños for some spice as recommended by another reader.
I cooked some down a bit further for pizza sauce.
This is a keeper.
★★★★★
Delish! I ate it right away and mixed in a bit of pasta water. This recipe is a keeper!!!
★★★★★
Love hearing that! Thanks, Tracey!
So freakin good! Have an abundance of cherry tomatoes and was searching how to use them.
★★★★★
Easy and delish! I added a little water because my sauce was very thick but it still has plenty of good, rich flavor. Made mine with hometown cherry tomatoes…about half were Sungold, a quarter were Sweet Million and a quarter were Cherry Buzz.
★★★★★
Home grown, not hometown! 😀
I used your recipe last night pretty loosely but as guidance to use up a about 150 cherry tomatoes from my garden and the sauce is delicious!!
I tripled the bad batch (per researched info found that 15-20 cherry tomatoes makes a lb), used dried basil and thyme because I didn’t have fresh on hand, I a wing the amount of those two ingredients but followed everything else pretty closely and it is still delicious! I ended up freezing mine but only got 3 pints of sauce (which just makes me question my 20 tomatoes to one pound).. it is still fantastic and next time I will weigh my tomatoes.
Thank you for sharing!
Can you use this recipe using frozen cherry tomatoes?
I haven’t tried this. Did you freeze your own cherry tomatoes? I’m not sure how they would work roasted. They likely will have more water in them from being frozen and that may throw off the timing.
I love it. I haven’t even put it in the blender yet and it tastes wonderful. I don’t like to use my oven in the summer so I roasted them on the grill. I think this added more flavor. I can’t wait to make my eggplant lasagna with this. By the way, I have never rated any recipe, I have had good ones, but this is great and wanted to let you know. Thank you for such an easy and delicious recipe.
★★★★★
I grew tomatoes, basil, and green peppers just to make my own sauce for my lasagna on Christmas! Thank you for sharing cause I was wondering if it would be good for a lasagna! ♥️
★★★★★
I made this today. Thank you for such an easy and tasty recipe. I roasted the garlic and added about a quarter cup of red wine to the recipe. Yum Yum. Thanks again.
★★★★★
Easy way to use garden tomatoes. Family loves it. Freezes beautifully.
★★★★★
Made this today with heaps of cherry tomatoes, onions, garlic, and herbs from my garden. It is DELISH. Have marked this as a keeper!
★★★★★
This is absolutely delicious! Had way to many cherry tomatoes from the garden so this recipe was perfect. I did have one question, the skins didn’t purée as much as I had hoped. Any advice? Thank you for sharing this will be a regular in our home now!!
★★★★★
Disappointed with this recipe. Does not work well for smaller quantities. I don’t understand why it can only be stirred twice and without adding any water ends up burning!!
★★