Have a glut of homegrown tomatoes you're trying to get rid of? THIS is what to do with those extra tomatoes: slow roast 'em.
I've discovered many, many, many, many things about myself over the years. Things like my weird love of the word many.
But the most important thing I've learned about myself is that I will always take seconds. If I make dinner, I will get up for seconds. If I go out for dinner to a friend's or relative's house I will get up for seconds.
It doesn't matter how side splittingly full I am after the first plate, I want more. My stomach could be so stretched out from food that I'm screaming in pain and I would still fart my way over to the casserole and take another helping.
I'm fun like that.
Once I understood this interesting fact about myself, I conspired to trick myself. It was kindda hard. I'm clever, but on the other hand … so am I.
I came up with a plan a couple of years ago and I've fooled myself with it ever since. Think this whole fooling myself thing is dumb? How many of you out there change the time on your bedside clock and yet every single morning you wake up too stupid to know what time it really is.
So what I do (knowing I will NO MATTER WHAT take a second serving of food) is make my first serving smaller. Yeah. It was that simple. Instead of my regular end of the day lumberjack sized serving, I take a little less. So when I get my second serving, I'm really only eating the amount of food I would normally eat (not necessarily *should* eat).
I'm a profound overeater at dinner. More than once the neighbours have found me rolling around on the front lawn with a fork in one hand and a bottle of Gaviscon in the other crying incoherently about a tumour in my stomach which is really 17 meatballs.
Did somebody say meatballs? I have a great sauce for those!
This summer I swore I wasn't going to waste a single vegetable I grew. That didn't come true. I wasted all kinds. It's almost impossible to use every single thing you grow, or even give it away. You go up to the garden and a watermelon you thought wouldn't be ripe for a few days got ripe overnight and rotten within a few days. Tomatoes are bitten by bacteria riddled raccoon monsters or a cucumber sits on the kitchen counter with good intentions of turning it into something. Which you do. You turn it into a rotting mess.
So when all of my 15 tomato plants started to produce ripe tomatoes at the exact same time I knew I had to formulate a plan or forever think of myself as the tomato waster.
Last year I roasted all of my extra tomatoes and froze them. Which was great. They were delicious. But you still had to make them into a bit of a sauce once you took them out of the freezer. Boil them down a bit, add some liquid, some more seasoning … that sort of thing.
So this year I went another route. I roasted my tomatoes but I added a few more things to the roasting pan and added one more step.
This is really easy so feel free to use only a portion of your brain to read this post.
I forgot to mention to drizzle the bottom of the pan and the top of the tomatoes with olive oil. A pretty good glug.
Roasted Tomato Sauce.
A delicious way to use up the glut of garden tomatoes.
This isn't a recipe that requires strict measurements. As long as you follow the technique you'll end up with delicious sauce.
Ingredients
- 10 or so tomatoes (quartered or halved)*
- 1 onion (peeled and chopped into quarters)
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried basil
- 2 cloves whole garlic (do not peel)
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 hot pepper halved, or ¼ teaspoon dried pepper flakes
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 F.**
- Add everything to a sheet pan and douse with some olive oil. Mix everything up so it's all coated nicely and put the pan in the oven.
- Roast for 3 hours (checking on them and stirring every hour or so).
- When the ingredients look roasted and dark and caramelized in some spots you can take the mixture out of the oven.
- Remove and discard the bay leaf.
- Find the garlic and remove the peel. Add it back to the tomatoes.
- Once everything is cool enough to handle, put it in a blender and blend it up to whatever consistency you like.
- Freeze leftovers.
Notes
- Adding cherry tomatoes if you have access to them will sweeten your sauce beautifully!
- Your roasting temperature might be different. Some ovens run hotter or cooler than others. Check your tomatoes and if after 1.5 hours they aren't showing any signs of roasting at all you can turn your oven up (or down if needed) in 25 degree increments.
- Leaving the peel on the garlic while roasting, helps stop the garlic from drying out. Don't forget to remove the peel before blending.
Just throw everything on the pan. The only thing you really have to remember is only having a single layer on the pan, and allowing space in between the ingredients. This will stop your tomatoes from steaming instead of roasting.
One pan like this will get you around 3 servings of sauce.
Roast everything in the oven at a lowish temperature, (around 300F) for a few hours. You just have to keep checking on them. You only need to stir them 2 or three times to make sure they're evenly roasted.
Once all the ingredients are roasted and your kitchen smells like you really know what you're doing, pull the tomatoes out and let them cool a bit. Remove the bay leaf. If you don't like a lot of heat remove one or both of the peppers.
Now you have 2 choices.
Use the roasted tomatoes on your pasta as is, which is rustic and delicious. Or blend them into more of a sauce.
To make them into a sauce, put everything else in your blender and blend until you like the consistency.
I did one batch completely blended so there was no trace of tomato skins or seeds, and another batch I left more rough, with bits of tomatoes and skin visible.
Then I spooned serving sizes onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper and froze them. Once they're frozen you can just pop them off the waxed paper and put them in a freezer bag or tupperware and return them to the freezer.
I ended up pulling one out right away because I wanted to make chicken parmesan.I always want to make chicken parmesan, but I don't because I can never be bothered to make a whole batch of sauce for the 3 tablespoons I need for the recipe to top the chicken. This sauce, always on hand in the freezer, solves that problem.
It does not however, solve the always taking a second serving problem. At all.
So, you blend unpeeled garlic into the sauce? Do you leave them unpeeled because they will burn if you peel them?
Good point. I push the garlic out of the peel before blending. I leave it in the peel exactly because of the reason you said. If you chop it, the garlic ends up sticking to the pan and burning. And if you put a whole clove in without the peel it will dry out. ~ karen!
Thank you!!!
You have saved my "frost tonight, better pick 'em all" tomato crop from a slow fruit fly infested rotting death. Instead, I get to have dreamy sauce on ravioli.
I know I’m a little to the show here but just gotta let you know I just made this and it was fab! You don’t need me to tell you that eh?! I had a big plastic clamshell of grape tomatoes that had been shriveling up on my counter for weeks so rather than chuck em, I decided to roast them back to usefulness. After popping them in the oven for an hour, I came across your post, so threw in the rest of the ingredients and left it for another 2 hours. The fragrance in the house was drool worthy! Served some over pasta with shredded parm and toasted pine nuts for dinner. Afterwards, I put the baking sheet on a couple of stove burners, added some water and red wine to deglaze all those yummy bits of brown goodness and that’ll kick the next meal up a notch. Thanks for the inspiration!
You wrote this in 2014. I have to assume that I read it then. (Did I comment then? I'm too lazy to look, but probably.)
I read it again just now and HOWLED with laughter again. And bonus: this is the year I have far too many tomatoes, not enough space in the freezer, so I'll bottle this sauce. But cooking them down is DEFINITELY the way to go. Thanks... for the laughs!
I started a small garden this year but due to health issues, it died and was over grown by weeds. But I go the local farmers market for my veggies and get wonderful tomatoes, etc. This is a great recipe to make this year for my annual tomato sauce canning. Thanks so much for this new sauce recipe. I'm looking forward to having this around when I need it. I frequently cook for only 1 or 2 and this is ideal.
Well Karen I can't believe it and you won't either. I scurried home from work, ran to the garden and I have my tomatoes, hot peppers, basil and oregano roasting away. After all these years you have finally moved me to action!
LOL! Barb!!! Good job, lol. Let me know how they turn out. If you have them in at 275 it'll be about 4 hrs or so. ~ karen!
Well I will be busy today...thanks to you. And I do mean THANKS!!!! I'm another reader who is trying not to waste food.
I discovered roasted tomato sauce last year when I had a bumper crop of heirlooms which were too strong tasting for me. It didn't occur to me to blend them and I didn't want the seeds and skins so I smooshed them through a sieve. Yep, you are so right! Roasted tomato sauce has spoiled me for all others!
Of course, I like to do stuff and swear, even drink a little, and have fun doing it all
First you make me throw up in my mouth with the chicken eggs...now you make me want to try this lovely sauce....you are just a lil charmer....thanks Karen!
Thanks Karen. I have 4 tomato plants flourishing in my garden and I'm the only one that eats fresh tomatoes. I'll be roasting a batch (or 2) this week.
I'm so glad you're going to do this SarahP! I vowed that THIS was the year I didn't waste a single tomato. A tough challenge when there's only me against 35 or so tomato plants, lol. ~ karen!
Hey Karen , do you add any liquid to the blender??
going to have to go get me a few tomatoes to try this, looks sooo good.
OH you ask why go get tomatoes?? well my tomatoes either got taken or did not ripen. In fact i have a tomato bush from hell that have not ripened and they have been on the vine( vine?? or plant) for months!!
i have taken them off and put them in a window and they still are Green!! or rolling around the house cause the cats think they are their new toy.
thanks for the recipe!!
Hi Lori! I don't add liquid. With the tomatoes it should come out the perfect consistency! But if you maybe roasted them a bit to long and they don't have enough liquid left, just add a bit of water to the blender. No big whoop. ~ karen!
I've been trying to get the word out about how easy roasted tomato sauce is with not a lot of success. Obviously you've been reading my mind clear out here on the west coast! Did I mention that I freeze mine so I have it all year. Along with butt loads of pesto too.