Is the garden erupting with end-of-summer bounty? Are the piles of CSA vegetables taking over your fridge and kitchen counters? Are you feeling as lazy about canning as I am this summer? Well then, you’re in luck! This easy-peasy roasted vegetable tomato sauce solves all those problems and more, in addition to the perennial question, “What’s for dinner?”
While I am slowly (oh-so-slowly) surfacing from my post-World Cup funk (two loonnnnggg years before qualifying for 2018 starts), I can’t quite seem to light a fire under my canning mojo. I’ve spent exactly one day canning since I got back from Brazil in early July, and I have to guess that farmer’s market revenue in my ‘hood is down this summer because I haven’t been there loading up on fruits & vegetables. And while I really, really need to preserve a whole lot of tomatoes this year, lest I face the terrifying prospect of store-bought tomato sauce this winter (shiver), I haven’t quite worked up the energy: yet. Good news is on the horizon, though: this entirely random, empty-the-fridge-before-stuff-goes-bad, roasted vegetable tomato sauce is killer.
This sauce is da bomb, in many ways. I honestly can’t remember the last time I whipped up a summer, fresh-tomato sauce off the top of my head, without busting out the food mill, worrying about acidity, or canning safety, or anything else. And yes, freezer space is an issue: I can’t possibly preserve all the tomatoes I want this year in the freezer. And despite my lack of mojo this summer, I wouldn’t want to: I enjoy the time-honored tradition of putting-up, and that includes seeing lovely jars of tomato goodness lining the shelves. But it was nice, decadent even, to simply toss a bunch of vegetables on a tray, then roast, blend, freeze. The best part? The sauce is really delicious: smoky, layered, chunky and rich. I’ve already used two pints on pizza, pasta and vegetable lasagna. At the rate this sauce is going, I don’t think freezer space is going to be a problem after all.
Adapted from Roasted Tomato Sauce by Martha Stewart
Garden-Busting Roasted Tomato Sauce
INGREDIENTS
- 5 lbs tomatoes, cored and halved or quartered
- 2 medium onions, quartered
- 1 bunch scallions, washed & trimmed, white parts only
- 1 small head garlic cloves, peeled
- 3 medium carrots, scrubbed and coarsely chopped
- 6 small sweet peppers, stemmed, seeded and coarsely chopped
- 1 crookneck squash, seeded and coarsely chopped
- 2 Japanese eggplant, coarsely chopped
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp red chile flakes
- generous grinds of fresh black pepper
- generous handful of fresh basil leaves
- splash or two of lemon juice or red wine vinegar
METHODS
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (400 degrees F convection). Spread chopped vegetables over two rimmed baking sheets. Drizzle 2 tbsp of olive oil over each sheet, sprinkle with salt, chile flakes and black pepper, then toss together to evenly coat the vegetables. Turn tomatoes cut-side down. Roast in the preheated oven until vegetables are tender and fragrant and beginning to brown at the edges, about 45 – 60 minutes.
- Remove trays from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Pluck tomato skins from roasted tomato halves if you like. Transfer, in batches as necessary, to the bowl of a blender or food processor along with roasting juices. Add basil leaves. Pulse until sauce is chunky yet uniform. Taste and adjust flavoring with lemon juice or vinegar and additional salt & pepper as needed.
Yields approximately 5 – 6 pints.
OPTIONS
- Any and all. Since this sauce is frozen, not canned in a water bath, you can make substitutions willy nilly without fear of affecting recipe safety. Use whatever vegetables need using up, just make sure to taste and balance the flavors after blending, before you tuck jars away in the freezer.
- I don’t get too crazy about tomato skins, especially in a chunky, blended sauce like this one. I pulled off the ones that were easy enough to slip off, or very charred, and left on whatever was too small or annoying to remove. In all, I probably removed about half the skins. Doubt it made any really difference in the taste or texture of the sauce.
STORE
Refrigerated for up to 1 week. Frozen for up to 6 months.
SEASON
Summer.
localkitchenblog.com 
That looks yummy. And sounds relatively simple. Will try this one out for sure!
I love everything tomato-based. This sounds delicious!
Looks great! What type of container do you freeze it in?
I froze in 5 Weck pint-sized jars. I prefer glass for freezing, so I would recommend wide-mouth Ball jars or glass storage containers.
Reblogged this on Country Smoke House Blog.
i will eat anything with tomatoes – this sounds wonderful 🙂
i am definitely going to use the tomatoes from my garden to make this!
I’m low on tomatoes right now… in fact what little did get planted was over run with weeds and then the tomato horn worms devoured the rest. Hungry little boogers! But the “moth” is so pretty. oh well! I do have everything else in abundance though. So I guess I’ve be heading to the farmer’s market Saturday to see if there any any “ugly” tomatoes around. (they are cheaper but just as lovely tasting!!) Thank you for sharing! I know my family will appreciate me coming up with some other way to use the eggplant and squash (the teen’s arch-nemisis). I can taste it on a pizza already (yes that is the dinner requested the most here… can you tell i still have a teenager living at home? a boy at that? ha ha!)
I’ll tell you Peggy, eggplant & summer squash are on my husband’s verboten list as well, but he tasted this sauce, declared it delicious, and even took it backpacking with him, it was that good. Your son can thank me later. 🙂
Great sauce – I only have cherry tomatoes this year and they are tiny. Have you tried this recipe for green tomato cake – I made it last year and it is absolutely delicious http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/9985/green-tomato-cake.aspx
This sounds perfect for pasta! Might try it on the weekend 🙂
Wonderful! I am doing this today – thank you!!
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Oh my….I made about 1 1/2 gallons of this today. I used tomatoes, zucchini, red onion, garlic, green pepper, carrot, and fresh thyme/basil/oregano. I could eat it with a spoon! In fact, I think it would make an incredible soup with some chicken broth and cream. Thank you so much!
I think you’re right – it’s really tasty even on its own! Glad it turned out well for you. And think of all the great meals out of the freezer this winter!
So…I just finished a bowl of soup made from this sauce. Oh. My. Goodness. It is amazing! I used about 4 cups of the sauce, 3 cups of chicken broth (homemade bone broth), and stirred in some heavy cream just before serving. Absolutely delicious! We are low-carb-ish these days, or I would have had a nice slice of homemade sourdough bread on the side. A perfect meal! Thank you again for a great “recipe”!
Just so you know, I am still using this recipe as a sauce and as a soup! Still LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Thank you again for the inspiration!
Love this — it’s so much easier to blast the oven for an hour to roast the veg instead of standing over big pot on the stove. The kitchen still heats up, but at least I can walk away!
We have plenty of fresh tomatoes from the garden and this sounds like the perfect way to use them. We love a robust tomato sauce over pasta, especially if it is garden fresh.
This looks absolutely divine! I love tomato sauces that are full of fresh veggie flavors! The taste of summer is unbeatable!
This is really funny. After taking about a month off without looking at your blog, I came back and here is the sauce that I have been making this summer. I got the recipe (a bit different from yours) from a book called the Quarter Acre Farm by Spring Warren. The book is great! The sauce is easy (even easier than yours) and we had a very hot summer and I don’t feel like canning.
Her recipe is just to take anything in the garden and throw it into a roasting pan (with lid, I use my dutch oven) and then roast at 475 degrees, stirring every 1/2 hour. I add oregano and have been using garlic and shallots as my aromatics (in fact I’ve been using the garlic and shallots left over from last year). Once everything has become glop (between 1 — 2 hours), turn off oven and leave to cool in oven (overnight works well). Once cool, add some olive oil, basil, salt and pepper and any other spices and blend. I’ve used peppers, zucchini and beet greens in this, in addition to the tomatoes and aromatics. When I finish, I don’t taste anything really other than spicy delicious sauce (so don’t worry about the summer squash unless you really use a lot). Yum!!!
Anyway, it was a kick to see this recipe here. I wonder if she adapted hers from Martha or the other way round. . .
Just love the flavor and simplicty of oven roasted tomatoes — aah, Mother Nature…
We had a fantastic crop of tomatoes this year and now I know exactly what I want to do with some of them – this sounds so delicious.
yum! love everything about this! lovely photos 🙂
Looks so healthy! I love it!
hrew together a batch of this to use up the rest of last week’s CSA before we picked up our new box today. It is AMAZING, and I love the idea another commenter had of using it to make soup!