Really Easy Roasted Tomato Sauce
My kids are a bit weird.
They have never been ‘tomato sauce kids’! They are practically un-Australian, I know!
Lots of kids though do eat a lot of tomato sauce.
Once the tomatoes have been heavily processed and mixed in with a heap of additives, sugar, salt and questionable oils they can no longer really be called a vegetable!
Sure, you can make your own ‘proper’ tomato sauce and I have done (the thermomix makes it pretty easy). I just find sterilizing all those bottles a little time-consuming! Quirky Cooking has an ace recipe if you want to try it out.
Anyway, this is my quick version of tomato sauce. Make a small amount. Store it in the fridge. Use within four to five days or freeze. No need to sterilize bottles. But do give them a good wash in hot soapy water!
The slow roasting brings out the beautiful flavours and makes it sweet.
We use it alongside meats for added flavour but it also makes a great easy meal by throwing some over the top of some chicken and whacking it in the oven to bake.
You can also use it on pizza, tossed through pasta, as a dipping sauce……. anything really!
It also tastes good with other veges added in like capsicum and zucchini, but keep the tomatoes as the main ingredient or it won’t be that nice red colour.
(We don’t want to freak the kids out tooooo much!)
Okay, so this is what you need:
Tomatoes (try to source some organic or pesticide free ones from a farmer’s market)
Red onion
Garlic
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Fresh herbs ( I like basil but whatever you have is fine)
Tiny sprinkle of rapadura sugar (optional)
Tiny sprinkle of pink himalayan salt
Tiny sprinkle of cracked black pepper
I don’t have exact measurements – you really don’t need them.
Okay, so this is how you do it:
Give your tomatoes a good wash and halve them.
Cut the red onion into wedges.
Whack in a baking dish with the garlic cloves (unpeeled).
Drizzle over the balsamic and olive oil.
Sprinkle with the sugar, salt and pepper.
Chuck into the oven on a low temperature – about 160°C for about one hour.
Let it cool down a little.
Squeeze the garlic out of their skins.
Chuck everything into your thermomix/blender/food processor.
Chuck in your fresh herbs.
Whizz. Taste and check for seasonings.
Slurp it into a bottle or jar.
Keep in the fridge or freeze portions.
Do you like tomato sauce? Do your kids eat it?
This is a great recipe! It would be lovely over pasta. BTW sterilising bottle isn’t hard – put them through dishwasher or just wash in sink and put them in microwave for 1 min or stand in oven at 100 degrees while sauce is whizzing tmx. 😉
Oh I didn’t realize that the dishwasher was enough!! I just freak out about handling them hot from the oven and getting the temp of the jar and the sauce right… have had a few crack on me!
Oh dear – never had any crack. If you pour straight from 100 degree tmx to 100 degree bottle frm oven should be ok :-/
Yummo – I LOVE roasted tomato sauce…. so much better than the store-bought crap…. so many uses too 🙂
once you have home-made you never go back to shop stuff ! same with mayo!!
Yum! I’m going to try this tomorrow. Looks delicious! I’d love your mayo recipe too. Thanks!
Thanks Natalie – let me know how you go and if you like it !! My mayo recipes is on here – just search for mayonnaise! 🙂
Hi Sonia
Thank you for this great recipe, even I could manage this one 🙂
I was lucky enough to be given a sample of homemade tomato sauce just last week – a new associate is making it. I’ve never been a fan of tomato sauce, but now that I have tried the real thing – wow! Who knew homemade tomato sauce tasted like… you guessed it! Tomatoes!
Can I just have a little giggle,too, about the comments above. It is easily assumed that households have dishwashers and microwaves. I have neither a microwave, for health reasons, nor a dishwasher, for environmental reasons – an easy choice as we are childless so don’t have the huge amount of dishes most families have.
(or a thermomix btw, but that is very high on the must have list!)
My mum used to make it when we were kids… we didn’t full appreciate how good it was and how lucky we were! I would not survive without my dishwasher! We do so much cooking! But I never use the microwave anymore!
I totally get that, there are days when I won’t cook what I would really like to because I don’t want to face too many dishes 🙂
Microwaves do come in handy for wheat bags and sterilising bottles – but yes not everyone would choose to have one.
My emoticons didn’t come out – this comment is made with smiley faces. 🙂 🙂 🙂
🙂 🙂 🙂
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! This is so weird, I have been looking for a homemade ‘mato sauce for ages as my passatta isn’t quite doing it for miss Arwen, I will be making this! xxxx
it is yummy and tastes fresh unlike the bottled stuff !
We are on our last bottle of home made sauce so this will come in handy, thank you x
do you guys do the big Italian backyard bottling thing?
Do you think this would work with Apple Cider Vinegar instead of the Balsamic?
Thanks 🙂
Yes, just do a tiny, tiny bit though or leave it out – balsamic has such a distinct flavour.
That looks great. I am doing homemade pizzas tonight so will make that sauce to go on them mmmmmm
let me know what you think !
We make a similar sauce from Stephanie Alexander’s Cook’s Companion – it goes with so many things. Great to make in bulk with boxes of tomatoes and freeze.
Yes if you can get cheap tomatoes from the farmer’s markets, that’s the way to go!
That looks great. I have a similar recipe I make just using tinned tomatoes, but I bet the roasting gives it a much richer flavour. Thanks for the suggestion 🙂
yes and it tastes fresh if you get what I mean?
So you don’t remove pips or skin?
No, I don’t – too much mucking around 🙂