Simple Roasted Tomato Sauce

Roasting tomatoes brings out their natural sweetness, transforming a handful of fresh ingredients into a rich, aromatic sauce. This simple roasted tomato sauce is perfect part of creating a comforting meal with minimal effort.

This roasted tomato sauce is made from tomatoes, bell peppers and onion. The addition of bell peppers makes the sauce just a little bit sweeter and is especially handy for people who are used to add sugar or baking soda to their tomato sauce for taste reasons.

This recipe can be easily scaled up, ensuring just the right amount of sauce for a family pasta party or a pizza night with the neighborhood.

Key Ingredients in This Recipe

Top and bottom half of this baking sheet represent color options for the different colored sauces.

• Cherry – or grape tomatoes. Select yellow or red.
• Bell peppers – match color of pepper with tomato for deep and intense sauce color.
• Onion – yellow or sweet.
• Olive oil
• Stock – optional. To thin the sauce if needed.
• Butter – optional. To add creaminess.

How to Make Simple Roasted Tomato Sauce

This is a really simple recipe to make, and all you need is a baking sheet and a food processor/blender or immersion blender. So, you can make it fresh every time you need a tomato sauce, but you can also decide to make more and freeze it for a next time.

• Step 1 – Chop the bell pepper and onion. Leave the cherry tomatoes in tact. Place on a baking sheet.
• Step 2 – Drizzle vegetables with olive oil and salt and make sure vegetables are coated.
• Step 3 – Place the baking sheet in an oven (450 degrees F) and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until the tomatoes burst. Don’t bake longer than needed as you will lose a lot of liquid you may need to add back in to get the thickness you want.
• Step 4 – Transfer tomatoes, pepper and onion into a food processor/blender or a cup and use an immersion blender. Start pureeing until you have a smooth mixture.
• Step 5 – Check thickness of the sauce and add stock if you want it thinner (like a pasta sauce) or keep it thicker, e.g. for spreading over a pizza bottom.
• Step 6 – Add salt and pepper if needed. Another addition is butter to add some creaminess.

Alternatives and Substitutes

• You can make this will larger tomatoes as well, but you may lose liquid a little faster due to the exposure of the inside of the tomatoes to the heat.
• If you prefer the acidity of tomatoes, by all means leave the bell peppers out. It will still be an amazing sauce.
• Use vegetable stock or water if you want to keep the sauce vegan, alternatively chicken stock is an option as well.
• Add fresh herbs at the end to sprinkle over the sauce. When you try to blend them into the sauce it will influence the color and will become less bright and intense.

If you make this sauce in quantities more than you’ll need on the day of preparation, store it in a container in the fridge for up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for a max. of 3 months.