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,
This sauce turned out amazing. I ended up using a couple beefsteak and a few Roma tomato’s in addition to a lot of cherry tomatoes. I threw the onions and garlic on the pan with the tomatoes to roast. I also added a green pepper and a couple of stalks of celery. After it cooled I blended the sauce, warmed back up and served over zoodles.. delicious!!! I did wonder if you had the approximate nutrition information? That would be helpful. I am a Bariatric patient and still tracking everything that goes in my mouth. Considering what my garden is doing, I will be eating this sauce a lot for a while!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Susan! I’m so happy to hear you loved the sauce! We no longer provide nutrition info, but there are lots of calculators you can use online to find out based on the ingredients you use. That being said, it’s a pretty healthy tomato sauce 🙂
Hi,
I’ve tried to read through all the comments but may have missed where you said this, but do you just blend up all the skins?
Thanks
Hi! Yes, I do. Enjoy!!
The recipe was super easy to follow. I had everything in my own garden so it was a no brainer. I put the salt and pepper on the tomatoes while they were roasting. I also added some of my chillies to the oven to roast with it ( we like spice ❤️)
I also hot water bathed my jars for 40 mins to keep on the pantry shelf this gives a longer time of shelf life.
★★★★
Thanks, Melissa!!
I would love to preserve these tomatoes using this recipe, did you add lemon juice and if so how much did you use..or did you use another acid component? Thank you!
This tomato sauce was very good. I canned it as well, following the Ball blue book and added 1 Tbsp lemon juice for each pint and boiling water bathed for 35 min.
★★★★★
Thanks so much for the review and canning tip, Theresa!! 🙂
Why not can this recipe so it can be used much later, like everything else canned the favor would change a bit , I shall try and let you know.
Hi, Allen! Yes, lots of readers have canned this sauce with success. Enjoy!!
Have made this twice in the past week due to an unexpectedly large crop of tomatoes, and it’s turned out great. I will state up-front that I totally guesstimated the weight of my tomatoes and just eyeballed the olive oil (though I did make the effort to get good-quality as the recipe suggests).
My adjustments: I ended up using about 2/3 cherry tomatoes and 1/3 assorted other tomatoes (roma, a couple of beefsteaks, a couple of random ones from seeds my daughter planted), including some that were still a bit green. I also used half fresh basil and half that stuff in a tube because that’s what I had on hand, and I had no thyme – still turned out fantastic.
Definitely keeping this recipe bookmarked – really glad I found it.
★★★★★
*edit: I made the effort to get good-quality OLIVE OIL, I meant to say above
Thanks so much, Sarah!! So happy to hear our sauce was a hit!! And yes, one of the things I love is how flexible it is 🙂
I don’t currently have an oven because we are doing a kitchen redo. Could I cook the tomatoes on the stove somehow?
I’ve now made this twice, and in my opinion it’s the roasting that makes this recipe. I’m sure stovetop would be fine, but roasting makes this sauce sort of like a roasted red-pepper thing which I think would probably be lost if you did it all on the stovetop. (I’m not a kitchen goddess or anything, so take my comment with a grain of salt. I was just surprised at how much the roasting made it taste different than the stovetop sauce my husband made last week.)
Thanks, Sarah!!
Hi, Angela! You could cook this on the stove top, but it won’t have the same results. You’ll probably still end up with a good sauce (the combo of ingredients here is pretty winning, as is) but you’ll miss out on the caramelization and deepening of flavors that happens when you roast the tomatoes in the oven. If you do go the stove route I’d try to cook them very low and slow to release their liquids and concentrate the flavors (think like caramelized onions). Please let me know if you decide to try it! And hang in there without your oven! 🙂
do you have a grill? I have roasted tomatoes and other veggies over indirect heat with great success!
this is what I’m looking for, Julie. What container did you put them in? I was about to skewer some and try that but didn’t know if that was enough roast time.
★★★★★
I made this recipe as is. Super flavor and easy. Can’t wait to try in lasagna or spaghetti.
★★★★★
Thank you, Dawn!! 🙂
Thank you so much for this recipe! I cannot wait to try it this weekend! Can this be water bathed canned instead of needing put in the refrigerator?
Thank you
Hi, Robyn! Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy the recipe! You can definitely can this sauce. To be safe, I would recommend adding some lemon juice or citric acid if you’re going the water bath route. The recipe as is can be canned and frozen for several months. Enjoy!!
I thought you could not water bath tomatoes and/or sauce if there was oil in them. I was under the impression that you had to pressure can them when oil was present. Can you point me to documentation saying that waterbath canning is safe if oil is in the mixture?
I made this today and was the best pasta sauce that I have ever had! Really impressed my friends. Can’t wait to try it as pizza sauce!
★★★★★
Thank you so much, Cindy!! I’m so happy to hear that. We use this for pizza sauce all the time too – enjoy!!
This looks like a great way to use my tomatoes! What do you use it on? Like a regular spaghetti sauce? Thanks!
Hi, Lesley! You can use it on pasta, or pizza, or anything else you would use a tomato sauce for. Enjoy!!
This was a very nice recipe to use up a ton of delicious cherry tomatoes I had all at once. I used dried herbs because that’s all I had on hand And I added more garlic because you just can’t have too much garlic. Turned out beautifully!
★★★★★
Thank you, Geri!! Definitely can never have enough garlic… 😉
Hi there. Just to be helpful, you can actually do this all in one dish except for the basil. Just throw everything together in a roasting pan and mix with the olive oil and some salt and pepper and then once cooked throw it all in a food processor or blender with basil and any other seasons you like. Very easy cleanup. Let the oven do the work for you. With Love,
an Italian girl who loves to cook😉
Thanks, Erika!!
I just finished making this recipe and this is hands down the most amazing sauce I’ve ever tasted and so amazingly easy to make! I will be out picking more tomatoes in the morning and will no doubt be making another batch in the evening. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe!!
★★★★★
Thanks for the glowing review, Pam! So glad you enjoyed this sauce as much as we do!! 🙂
This recipe was amazing! The only change I made was I added some granulated garlic because I wanted more garlic flavor. My kids also loved it! We made a double batch and it used about two weeks’ worth of cherry and sungold tomatoes that were accumulating on my kitchen counters. Thanks for posting!!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Jamie!! Can never go wrong with a little extra garlic… 😉
The resulting sauce was great! Very fresh tomato flavor. I did do one extra step that led to a very silky sauce, and I would recommend it.
I pureed the tomatoes once they were cool enough to work with, then ran them through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds and the bigger chunks of skin. Proceed with the rest of the recipe after this step.
About 3/4 of my tomatoes were Sungold. If you haven’t grown them, please do so. Super tasty!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Harald!! Love Sungolds too 🙂
Has anyone frozen their tomatoes to save for roasting later? Does that work? It’s 101F where I live right now and turning on the oven right now sounds like a terrible idea! But I have plenty of tomatoes!
Also, roughly how many cups is 2-3lbs of cherry tomatoes? I don’t have a kitchen scale and want to balance out the flavors correctly! Many thanks!
I haven’t tried making this with frozen tomatoes. But I made it today with a mixture of fresh grape and yellow cherry tomatoes and it was delicious. I had just under 3 pounds, and it was enough to completely fill a large cookie sheet. Hope that helps!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Denise!!
Hi, Jennifer! I haven’t tried roasting frozen tomatoes – I’ve used frozen tomatoes for sauces that are sauteed on the stove top, but I’m not sure if it will translate the same to the roasting process. There will likely be more liquid so they may take longer to caramelize and concentrate their flavor. Please let me know if you try it! As far as the weight, I would assume about +/- 3 cups of cherry tomatoes per pound, depending on size/variety. Hope that helps! Stay cool! 😉
Hey Jennifer! I roast cherry tomatoes and then freeze them all the time! You can use them later for all the sauces. I just roast and then cool and put straight into freezer bags. I love it because you don’t have to peel or anything. I even often roast un the air fryer then freeze. Cheers!
This recipe looks delicious, haven’t made it yet. I have lots of cherry tomatoes but no freezer room. Has anyone tried canning this recipe??
Hi, Gail! You can absolutely can this sauce, and lots of readers have. I would recommend adding some lemon juice or citric acid if you’re looking for shelf-stable cans vs. storing in the freezer. Enjoy!!
This recipe is delicious and so easy! I did add minced carrots along with the garlic and i could eat this with a spoon!
★★★★★
Yum!! Thanks, Constance!! 🙂
This is an awesome recipe, so easy and delicious. In addition to my cherry tomatoes I had medium size black tomatoes that I included. Did not peel them and once done used my immersion blender. It was perfect. Thank you.
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Suzie!!
Delicious! An easy way to use up the herbs and tomatoes in my garden!
★★★★★
Thanks, Sarah!! 🙂
The flavours in this are amazing. Great way to use all those cherry tomatoes that you get all at once and just can’t keep up to.
★★★★★
Thank you, Carol!! 🙂