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,
Hi there, can you please confirm that the herbs go in later, after the toms are roasted? It seems odd to not add them to the roasting tin, which is how we’d usually do it, I’d appreciate any guidance before starting, it sounds great 🙂
Hi, Ruth! Yes, I always add the herbs to the pot with the onions, garlic and the roasted tomatoes. I don’t like to risk burning/overcooking them in the oven. But if you feel strongly about adding them to the tomatoes beforehand, I don’t think it’ll ruin the sauce 🙂 Enjoy!!
Made this sauce today and it is delicious. We use a lot of sauce and I am so pleased at how easy this was to make myself. I used a variety of small tomatoes from my garden (cherry, yellow pear, Black Prince and currant). The color is lighter and I find this to be a thicker sauce than many store bought. I was able to can 3 pints. I’ll double that next year! Thank you for sharing!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Pam!! 🙂
Hi just about to make this sauce and wanted to check that the tomato skin in left on.
Hi, Harinder! Yes, skins are left on, and blended with the sauce. Enjoy!
You must have one powerful blender or my tomatoes have iron skins – because the skins would not blend and they are unpleasant and wreck the sauce. Ran it through a mil, without much success, clogged with seeds and skin very little sauce after that was done.
I made this sauce this afternoon with the bounty of Sweet Millions I have. Managed a full 3 pounds of tomatoes (still tons more!) from what were fluke tomato plants. It was so easy to make! The color after blending is gorgeous. Thanks for a great, simple recipe. But… this batch is soooo super sweet even with the onions and garlic, it’s like eating tomato candy. Do you have any hints for taming the sweetness? Thanks!
Hi Erica! Since the sauce has no added sugar, all of that sweetness is coming from your tomatoes. They must have been super sweet to begin with (usually not a terrible problem to have!), and the roasting just further caramelized and intensified the flavors. You could try adding something acidic (like lemon juice or balsamic vinegar) to tone down some of the sweetness. Or even adding a bit of canned crushed tomatoes/sauce might be what you’re looking for. Start with just a small amount and be sure to taste test as you add. Hope that helps! 🙂
I made this tonight using Tiny Tim tomatoes from my garden, it turned out great! I didn’t have fresh basil and thyme so I used dried, and I added a tiny bit of anchovy paste, and some ground beef. It was enough sauce for 3 generous portions.
★★★★★
Thank you, Heather!! Love your additions for a heartier sauce!
How many cherry tomatoes is 2-3 lbs? I Googled and found that it’s 15-20…I erred on the side of caution and used about 30 per pound. This still doesn’t seem like enough? I have more onions in my pot than tomatoes. The juices from the tomatoes also burned in the oven so I did not have any liquid to add to the onion mixture. How do I salvage this?
Hi! Depending on the size/variety of your tomatoes, I would assume +/- 3 cups of cherry tomatoes per pound. I haven’t counted the individual tomatoes, and it’s pretty flexible, but you’ll need a minimum of 6 full cups. You should definitely have more tomatoes than onion, and lots of juices from the roasted tomatoes. I’m wondering if maybe your oven is running hot? They absolutely shouldn’t burn that quickly (they will soften and shrivel as they roast and caramelize, but there should still be tons of moisture from the olive oil and the released tomato juice). At this point, I would try to either roast some more tomatoes if you have any, or add some crushed/diced canned tomatoes or tomato sauce. The latter won’t be exactly the same, since so much of the wonderful flavor of this sauce comes from the roasted tomatoes, but you should still be able to salvage a pretty decent sauce. Hope that helps!
5 star recipe all the way ! I just added 1/2 TB of sugar to it and wow, Best sauce I ever tasted !!! Thank you for posting !
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Sam!! Thrilled to hear that 🙂
Used a variety of small tomatoes and tastes great. Roasting is the key for sweetness. Thanks.
★★★★★
Thanks, Deb!! Yes, roasting is magical! 🙂
Incredibly flavorful! I used two varieties of cherry tomatoes, onion, basil, and thyme from my garden, plus purchased garlic and olive oil. Yield was just 2 pints from 2.5 lbs of tomatoes – there were tons of seeds that I strained out.
Thanks so much, Lisa!!
I used grape tomatoes as we had massive amounts of those, but absolutely loved this! I just kept ours chunky, didn’t blend and mixed it with browned ground turkey and served over bucatini noodles. So good! Can’t wait to do again next year!
Thanks so much, Kayla!! So happy you loved the sauce!
I used a little less olive oil, but otherwise made as written. Fresh tomatoes from the garden made this a standout!
★★★★★
Thanks, Julia!! 🙂
WOW. This is the BEST recipe. I am sitting here, literally eating the sauce on it’s own. Thank you!
★★★★★
Thank you so much, Caryl!!
My wife has just had her first harvest of cherry tomatoes (so many) so I found this recipe and thought “Why not have a go?” Tailored the quantities to match what we had and went for it. Lloyd Grossman, eat your heart out! It has a great consistency, (immersion blender) rich flavour and wonderful colour. I used very hot jars, filled them with the sauce whilst still hot and this resulted in a very satisfactory vacuum seal when cooled. That should make it last longer? Definitely do this again, add extra ingredients for either puttanesca or arrabiata, see how it goes. Very pleased. More than that, my wife loved it!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Mick!! So happy to hear this was a winner for you (and your wife)! 🙂
This was just what I was looking for as I am overrun with cherry tomatoes! One question and I think I know the answer. You have the stems on in the picture. You don’t use them in the recipe do you? I am going to assume it was for artistic purposes?
★★★★★
Thank you, Anne!! Yes, stems on just for the photos 😉 You can actually roast them stem on, but you’ll definitely want to remove them before adding to the sauce (easier to do before hand). Enjoy!!
I never leave reviews on all the recipes I’ve made over the years but had to this time. Wow this is a very decadent tomato sauce and will definitely be planting more cherry tomato plants next year. This stuff is very very delicious – thanks for the great recipe!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Julie!! So happy to hear you loved the sauce 🙂
We made this sauce using our heirloom Matt’s wild cherry tomatoes with your phenomenal recipe! We roasted garlic cloves with them for 35 minutes and it turned out the best ever! We also added some Merlot red wine that I also used in the Marinara sauce I had also made last week! I’m making pizza today and your sauce will be perfectly awesome on it! 😋 Thank you so much! 🥰
★★★★★
Yum! Thanks so much, Darlene! We love this sauce on pizza too 🙂
Just finished making this; it came out great. I didn’t worry about exact measurements. In additions to a sheet pan full of cherry tomatoes, I added a few larger tomatoes and two red bell peppers, cut in chunks. Instead of taking pan out of oven and tenting, after about 1/2 hr., I just turned-off oven and let things sit while I chopped and then sautéed onions and garlic. Since I’d just used-up my garden basil last week to make pesto, instead of fresh basil, I added about 1/3 cup of pesto to the mixture and then cooked it all down on the stove. This year’s tomatoes are really seedy with thick skins, so I ran the sauce through the finest strainer on my food mill.
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Jenny!! Happy you liked the recipe and could make it your own! 🙂
I made the sauce last night and use it on my pizza today! This sauce is heavenly good. Thanks for your recipe! I only have around 2.6 lbs of the cherry tomatoes and I replaced the fresh thyme to the dried thyme instead. Love it and will definitely make it again!
★★★★★
Thank you, Dora!! So happy to hear that! 🙂
My oven is temporarily out of order. Any chance you know how I can do this on a gas grill? I have skewers, grill mats and an assortment of tools. but the temp and time escape me. thanks
Hi Elizabeth! I haven’t tried grilling the tomatoes for this recipe, but I would put them in a grilling pan without holes – you’ll definitely want to capture all of the juices as they cook, which are key to the flavor of the sauce. I would basically try to mimic an oven as best you can. Hope that helps, and please let us know if you try it!!
So simple and delicious; a great way to use up our abundant garden harvest! We used a few Roma tomatoes, too, since we didn’t quite have 3 lbs of cherry tomatoes.
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Lindsey!!
Eyeballed the measurements & threw in some large tomatoes. So, so delicious – thank you!!
★★★★★
Tried this last night for dinner with rigatoni and it is WONDERFUL!!! I was able to use everything except garlic and olive oil from from garden 🙂 I used an immersion blender and it worked great, but next time I will use my high speed blender to get all the little skin bits.
I did roast the tomatoes about twice as long, but it might be because I had to use casserole dishes instead of a sheet pan.
Delicious!!!
★★★★★
Thanks so much, Chelsea!! So happy to hear the sauce was a hit! And yes, sometimes the roasting time can vary a bit depending on how juicy your tomatoes are 🙂