Does Tomato Sauce Freeze Well
Absolutely, yes! Tomato sauce freezes extremely well. Again, use a glass, freezer proof container to freeze tomato sauce. If you use plastic, the sauce can discolor the container and the chemicals in the plastic might leach into your sauce.
See body of post for lots of tips.
Nutrition Information:
Amount Per Serving:
Nutrition information is only estimated.
The Stovetop Quick Cherry Tomato Pasta Sauce Method
This simple tomato basil pasta sauce make on the stovetop requires just a few simple steps.
First, mince or grate the garlic and chop the tomatoes in half .
Then, heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat and add the tomatoes. Cook for several minutes , stirring occasionally until the tomatoes are beginning to soften. Then cover the pan with a lid and reduce the heat to low.
Continue to cook for several minutes until the tomatoes have burst and are very tender. Then remove the lid and add the garlic and a few basil leaves. Allow it to cook and infuse for a few more minutes.
Next, use either a fork or potato masher to gently mash the tomatoes in the pan. Alternatively, you can use a blender, to blend them until completely smooth.
You can optionally remove the tomato peels. However, I usually dont as I blend the sauce and they arent noticeable at all. If the sauce is too thin, return it to the skillet and heat over medium-low until slightly thickened and reduced.
Before using the tomato garlic pasta sauce, optionally add a ladle-full or so of pasta water to the sauce and mix well. Then use and enjoy!
How To Can Homemade Spaghetti Sauce
If you have loads of tomatoes and you are wanting to can some spaghetti sauce to use later, we have the perfect recipe for you! It is one of the top recipes on our site and one of my favorite canning recipes of all time! Click HERE for our Canned Spaghetti Sauce recipe. Use it in everything from our delicious Spaghetti Squash Lasagna to our Quick and Easy Calzones.
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A Big Saucepan Is An Essential In Making A Tomato Sauce
Cherry tomatoes release a lot of liquid during cooking, so you should use a large mixing bowl to ensure the even distribution of the fruits. Before adding the tomato mixture to the saucepan, you can place a sheet of parchment paper over the top of the saucepan. Its best to use a big saucepan, so the ingredients dont stick together. Once you have browned them, you can add dried thyme and fresh basil. You can also add crushed red pepper flakes if youd like.
You can also use a large mixing bowl to help with this process. Using a large bowl will coat the tomatoes in tomato paste thoroughly. Then, pour the mixture into the baking dish and bake it in the oven for about one hour. A little balsamic vinegar is an excellent addition to your sauce. It will help the sauce retain its flavor and color. Then, you can drizzle it with balsamic vinegar.
You Can Roast Your Cherry Tomatoes In A Hot Oven
You can make tomato sauce from cherry tomatoes by roasting them in a hot oven. Youll need a large mixing bowl to prevent the cherry tomatoes from burning. You can also add some dried thyme and fresh basil for more flavor. Once theyre roasted, theyll take about one and a half hours. You can drizzle the sauce with a delicious balsamic glaze to ensure theyre evenly coated.
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How To Store Leftovers & Freeze
Refrigerator: completely cool sauce to room temperature, store in sealed mason jars or glass airtight containers, and keep in the fridge for 5-7 days.
Freezer: cool sauce to room temperature, then store in an airtight glass container and freeze for up to 3 months. When ready to reheat, remove and let thaw for 2-3 hours. Then add to pot and reheat.
We are absolutely in love with this homemade red sauce. Layer it in your favorite lasagna, serve it on your favorite pizza, and of course with pasta! Either way you serve it up, we know you will love it!
Cheers, friends!
What Is Fresh Tomato Sauce Called
You may wonder why I havent called this a Marinara sauce, because thats what many people would call it in the US and UK, however, a marinara sauce in Italy is actually a seafood sauce! So if youre looking for a recipe for an American version of Marinara, yes, youve found one. In Italy, sugo means sauce, and so this is just a quick sugo. Note: theres also a marinara pizza, that does not include seafood, so its rather confusing. Just call it a fresh tomato sauce to be easy!
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How To Freeze Homemade Tomato Sauce
Freeze for up to 3 months in a freezer-safe zipper bag or container, making sure to leave room for expansion as it freezes. Tomato sauce can stain plastic containers so if you choose to freeze in a plastic container, make sure it’s one you don’t mind getting stained.
Thaw in the refrigerator overnight, or thaw on the stovetop on medium low heat, stirring occasionally.
How To Preserve A Lot Of Tomatoes
If youre wondering what to do with lots of tomatoes and getting overwhelmed, dont worry there are many options when it comes to preserving tomatoes. It really depends on what you like and how much time and energy you want to invest in this. Here are a few ways to keep your tomatoes for months and eat them too:
- Canning. Canning tomatoes takes a while, but theyll keep fresh for a year, or as my mom can guarantee, a few years.
- Turn into tomato paste. Youll need to invest some time to cook your tomatoes down to this, but then you can make a pizza in 10 minutes with it.
- Drying tomatoes. Ever heard of sun-dried tomatoes? Of course, you have! This is another way to preserve tomatoes. If you dont have the patience to dry tomatoes in the sun, you can do it in the oven or buy a dehydrator.
- Freezing tomatoes. By far the easiest and quickest option that preserves the fresh flavor!
With my 2-year-old keeping me fairly busy, I decided to skip the canning ceremony this year. I decided to take the easy route and freeze the two buckets of fresh tomatoes my dad gave me from his garden.
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The Best Tomatoes For Homemade Sauce
Whenever I make tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes, the type I always go for are roma, which fall into the category of plum tomatoes. They are firm and shaped like an egg. When they are ripe, they will be a bright, saturated red color like so many other tomato varieties.
The reason they are so wonderful for sauce is that they have more flesh and less water than other tomatoes. Also, roma tomatoes have fewer seeds. When they cook down, they really intensify in flavor.
Watch The Video Here:
This Freezer Friendly Tomato Sauce is a labor of love, but so so worth it! The perfect way to make use of all of these fresh tomatoes during tomato season!
- Lexi
- Total Time:2 hours and 15 minutes
- Yield:51x
- 1011 pounds fresh heirloom tomatoes, or any tomatoes of choice
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 teaspoons sea salt, more to taste
- 2 teaspoons black pepper, more to taste
- 1 teaspoon dried basil, more to taste
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano, more to taste
- Optional: 1 4.5-ounce can tomato paste
- Optional: 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1/4 cup lemon juice if canning!
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The Trouble With Fresh Tomato Sauce
First, I want to admit something: Making sauce from fresh summer tomatoes has long been an insecurity of mine, despite years of cooking experience, including working as a sous chef in a Tuscan restaurant in New York and living and working on farms in Italy for extended periods, elbows deep in fresh-picked tomatoes and the sauce we made from them.
The reason why: There are two primary goals when making fresh tomato sauce, and they’re at odds with each other.
- First, the sauce should taste like it was made from fresh tomatoes, which means it should have the bright, fruity aroma and flavor of uncooked fruit. If we don’t have this, we might as well throw in the towel and stick with canned tomatoes 365 days of the year.
- Second, the sauce should have a good, sauce-like consistency and have deep, sweet notes, which means cooking off much of the tomatoes’ natural water content and caramelizing the fruit’s natural sugars. Otherwise, it’s going to be too thin and tart.
The trouble is that retaining the tomatoes’ fresh flavor means minimal cooking, while getting rid of the excess water content and caramelizing the sugars means extended cooking. Everyone has a different solution to this dilemma.
Of those approaches, the divide-and-conquer concept has always made the most sense to me, but I’d never settled on exactly how to do it. To figure it out, I started with the first, obvious question: What kind of tomato should we use?
Tips For Making Crockpot Tomato Sauce
Select meaty, plumb or paste tomatoes for a thick and flavorful sauce. My favorites are Roma, San Marzano, Amish Paste, and Juliet. Paste tomatoes have very little water content. You can still use other types of tomatoes, but it will take longer for the sauce to thicken.
Cooking the tomatoes with the skins and seeds helps to thicken the sauce with the fruits natural pectin.
Run the cooked sauce through a food strainer to remove seeds and skins. After the sauce has simmered for a while and the ingredients have softened, run though a through a food strainer or food mill to remove skins, seeds, and to smooth out the sauce. If you dont mind the seeds and skins, you can use an immersion hand blender to smooth out your sauce.
Using fresh herbs: I like using fresh herbs because they are readily available from the garden during the summer, but dried herbs are better for slow cooking because the flavor doesnt diminish from cooking. If you are using fresh herbs, add extra at the end of the cooking time.
This homemade crockpot tomato sauce pairs perfectly with Ricotta Gnocchi, Homemade Egg Noodles, Zucchini Lasagna, spiralized veggies, spaghetti squash, and as a pizza topping. Since you are not canning this tomato sauce, feel free to add other ingredients such as precooked mushrooms, green peppers, sausage, or meatballs.
- honey to sweeten if needed
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Tips For Best Results
- If you like a thinner sauce, you can add it to the food processor and puree into your desired consistency or if you like a thicker sauce, just skip this step.
- This recipe can be made ahead and refrigerated for two days.
- If you dont have fresh herbs on hand, they can be substituted for dried. Dried parsley has next to no flavor so I suggest using oregano in its place.
- Baking soda neutralizes acidity. To save bitter tomato sauce, add a pinch of baking soda at a time until the acidity disappears.
Recipes To Pair With This Sauce From Fresh Roma Tomatoes
Learn How to Make Lasagna with Zucchini Layers using this homemade sauce made from fresh tomatoes. You could also pair this homemade sauce drizzled over pasta served alongside this chewy Italian bread with a perfectly crispy crust.
This garlic bread recipe also shares how to make a garlic butter sauce that is perfect for dunking.
If you have a hearty supply of Roma tomatoes and want to make more homemade recipes check these out. This low-carb roasted tomato basil soup is a must-try. If you are following a low-carb diet, this recipe also includes instructions on how to make a low-carb grilled cheese that is perfect for the keto diet.
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What Are The Best Tomatoes For Marinara Sauce
You can use almost any tomato to make marinara sauce from scratch, but the best ones will be the paste tomatoes. These are meatier and have less water content, meaning you need to cook them for less time to get to that nice, thick sauce. Look for Roma or San Marzano tomatoes .
This marinara sauce is naturally chunky, but you can easily make it into a smooth and silky marinara with a quick blitz in the blender. I prefer to use a handheld immersion blender to puree it right in the pot, but you could also transfer it to a countertop blender.
What To Serve With Tomato Pasta Or Pizza
Go with a big green salad like a basic arugula salad with lemon vinaigrette. Or if you want something more, try an Italian chopped salad with olives, chickpeas and a mix of romaine and radicchio.
For a side dish again I am going with the color green and recommending roasted asparagus or parmesan roasted zucchini.
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Tips And Frequently Asked Questions About Fresh Tomato Sauce
As Ive noted in all my other pasta recipes: do not put dry pasta on a plate and top with sauce. This is simply going to taste awful compared to serving it correctly. Instead, do it the Italian way and take the pasta out of the water when its al dente, with a pasta fork, and add it directly into the pan with the fresh tomato sauce.
Stir to mix thoroughly.
Then serve to your family or guests.
What Youll Need To Make Sauce From Fresh Roma Tomatoes
If this is your first time making your own homemade tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes, you will be amazed by the simplicity. Once you gather your ingredients and supplies, you will be well on your way to making a delicious homemade sauce using Roma tomatoes.
There are many different methods and variations on how to make your own homemade tomato sauce. Feel free to add or take away some ingredients to create the best homemade sauce to suit your tastes.
The basic ingredients you will need to make this homemade tomato sauce are fairly common. In fact, you may already have them in your pantry. The most important part of this easy recipe is the Roma tomatoes. Be sure to use the best tomatoes you can get your hands on!
Whether they are from your own garden or a farmers market, the better the tomatoes, the better the sauce.
You will also need olive oil, a large onion, minced garlic from garlic cloves or pre-diced, and some seasonings that you can find below in the recipe card.
If you want to speed up the process and make a smooth tomato sauce you can use an immersion blender, food processor, or a food mill to break the tomatoes down quickly.
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Blanching To Remove The Skins
This option will remove the skins but not the seeds.
This is easiest done in a blancher. If you dont have one, you can just use a slotted spoon and a big pot of boiling water.
Blanch 4 to 6 tomatoes at a time. This will always depend on the size of the tomato. In the example pictures, I am doing Roma tomatoes. I like them for canning because they are meatier than other tomatoes. They are smaller too, so I can fit more in the blancher.
Canning Tomato Sauce Tip
I like to have two pots set up in my double sink. The one on the left is for the cold water to cool the tomatoes as they come out of the blancher. The one on the right is to slide the skins off into. The pots are lower than if you set them on a counter, which is easier on the arms, while the sink makes for easy clean up.
As you skin the tomatoes, slice them into a pot where they will be simmered.
What Tomatoes To Use
I say this ALL the time but it’s so true, you NEED to buy the best quality ingredients for this to work.
You can’t make the best Italian tomato sauce with low-quality tomatoes. I use chopped canned tomatoes for this quick 10-minute recipe. There are two brands of tomatoes that I use and love Cirio and Mutti which are always canned in a thick tomato juice not water. Both are high quality and reasonably priced.
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How To Store Fresh Homemade Tomato Sauce
You can keep fresh tomato sauce in glass containers , placed in the refrigerator for 2/3 days, in the freezer for up to a month.
Tomato sauce can be safely frozen. To freeze it you can use glass jars or the special food containers. When you want to defrost it, take it out of the refrigerator and put it in the fridge for a few hours, so that the thermal shock does not break the glass . Then defrost it completely at room temperature or in the microwave.
