Easy Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce – Eat Fresh or Freeze
This roasted cherry tomato sauce is rich and thick using the season’s abundant small tomatoes. It’s so simple to make, too – just toss everything on a pan and let the oven do the work! This amazing sauce, flavored with garlic and a splash of balsamic, is a freezer-friendly sauce you’ll want to keep on hand for pasta, pizza, and more.
✩ What readers are saying…
“Our pear tomato made a bumper crop and I’m so glad I found this recipe. I’ve made other roasted tomato sauces but this one is exceptional. The flavor is rich and multilayered. It’s more flavorful than the recipes I’ve used for my Roma tomatoes. I’ll definitely be using this recipe many times! Thanks!” -Janet T.
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Oh my goodness, have you ever made tomato sauce with cherry tomatoes? It’s SO good – and roasting the tomatoes makes the sauce even better!
My family can’t get enough of this roasted cherry tomato sauce flavored with balsamic, which makes it a good thing that it so freezes well – I make a lot to freeze and eat this summery goodness all winter long.
What to do with LOTS of cherry tomatoes?
If you grow cherry tomatoes you know two things:
- They are delicious.
- AND they are plentiful.
As in, “what am I going to do with all these tomatoes?” plentiful. Besides regular salads, cherry tomatoes work great in recipes like:
- A great main dish steak salad.
- Pasta salad with Greek flavors – a family favorite.
- Use in authentic Greek salad.
- Slice to top a chicken-spinach frittata (or any frittata really).
- Greek style orzo and shrimp – one of my favorite easy one-dish dinners.
So obviously it’s not hard to use cherry tomatoes in recipes, it’s just that when you grow them – even just a single plant – there’s usually a couple weeks where you just can’t seem to keep up with them. There comes a time when there are only so many salads and fresh eating you can do when they’re pouring in by the bucketful!
Do cherry tomatoes make a good sauce?
For the longest time, I didn’t think you were ‘supposed’ to make sauce with cherry tomatoes.
It is true that the sauce won’t be as smooth as with regular tomatoes because of the amount of seeds and skin-to-flesh ration. But if that bothers you, strain them out with a sieve, food mill, or Victorio food strainer.
We don’t care, so I skip that step not only because it’s more work, but also because you won’t get as much sauce (the volume will be affected).
Ingredient Notes & Substitutions
- Small tomatoes – Yes to any cherry tomato, obviously, but you can also use any type of small tomatoes whether they are grape or oblong shape, pear shaped, or round. In fact, one reader who made the recipe with both single and multiple types of small tomatoes suggested that “if you know your tomatoes are really sweet add some others, or change to red wine vinegar instead of balsamic” for deeper flavor that’s not just sweet.
- Vinegar – The recipe uses balsamic vinegar because it’s based on the best roasted tomato sauce and it’s one of the keys to the flavor. But if you’re dealing with sweeter tomatoes, definitely go with red wine vinegar or even apple cider vinegar in a pinch.
- Italian seasoning – I use a seasoning mix because it’s easy, however you can add the herbs you prefer in your own blend. You can also safely add fresh herbs if you’d like because it’s being eaten fresh or frozen and not canned.
- Red pepper flakes – I list these as optional, but we love the slightly spicy result from just a few flakes.
Can I use frozen tomatoes?
Yes! If you didn’t weigh them before freezing you can do it before thawing to get the ratio of other ingredients right. Then simply throw them frozen in the roasting pan with the other ingredients and proceed with the recipe.
Make Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
Like my favorite roasted tomato & vegetable sauce, making this cherry tomato sauce this is the easiest thing ever!
Step 1: Prep sauce. Wash the tomatoes well, cut them in half and throw them in a large roasting pan with all the remaining ingredients and toss it all together.
Step 2: Cook. Roast at 450 degrees for about an hour until it’s all browned wonderfully. Not only is roasting vegetables easy, it brings out an amazing flavor!
Step 3: Blend. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and use a hand-held immersion blender to whir it into a thick, smooth, completely yummy sauce. It’s at this point that you can strain it if you want.
Step 4: Eat or freeze. I always serve some of the sauce for dinner the night I make it over pasta or chicken and the rest I pour into freezer jars and freeze.
No hand-held immersion blender? You can transfer batches to a blender to whir up, but be careful with the hot ingredients – I have had it spurt out the top in the past before I discovered hand-held blenders!
Storage
- Refrigerate: you can keep this in the fridge for up to a week (great for meal prepping!).
- Freeze: This freezes for more than a year. Use any freezer containers you prefer. I use mason jars and leave a full 2-inches of headspace for expansion. Yes, I lose a few jars to breakage every now and then, but it’s worth it to have the easy thawing ability of glass and no microplastics to worry about.
Here’s probably the most-asked question about this sauce:
Is it okay to can this sauce?
No, it’s not okay to either pressure can or water-bath can this sauce! It hasn’t been tested and the ratios are probably not safe. Plus, it’s a very thick sauce which would make canning it more dangerous without a tested recipe.
But it’s SO EASY to freeze and thaw – and can’t you just imagine how wonderful this will be in January?
Reader Raves
“I have made this recipe every August for 6 years when I am overloaded with cherry tomatoes, it is amazing!” – Alexis
“I just finished running it through the food mill. WOWZER! It’s spicy and delicious! It’s so easy to make, and after all the tomatoes I’ve been saucing, this was a pleasant surprise for how good it is, with so little effort! This is a great sauce alternative!” -Belenda
“OMG….delicious. Just had appetizer…..toasts…goat cheese…roasted tomatoes…like eating candy!! My husband thinks we need to make lots more! Thank you so much for the recipe…I did not purée.” -Mary-Lyn
I hope you love this 5-star cherry tomato sauce – if you make it, be sure to leave a recipe rating to let me know!
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Easy Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce – Eat Fresh or Freeze
Equipment
- roasting pan
- 4-quart or larger pot
- Immersion hand held blender or regular blender
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 to 5 pounds cherry tomatoes washed well, large ones cut in half
- 2 onions coarsely chopped
- 6 cloves garlic peeled
- 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning or a blend of your favorite Italian seasonings*
- 2 teaspoons salt or to taste
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes optional
Instructions
- Heat oven to 450 degrees. Drizzle olive oil into a large roasting pan.
- Toss all ingredients into roasting pan and mix well.
- Roast about an hour, stirring once, until some of the tomatoes are starting to brown and they’ve broken down.
- Transfer to a saucepan and whir until smooth with an immersion blender (alternately, you can blend a bit at a time in a blender, being careful of hot splatters). If desired, pass through a sieve or food mill to remove seeds.
- Serve immediately or let cool, divide into freezer-safe containers, label and freeze to store.
Notes
Nutrition
More Cherry Tomato Recipes to try
- Easy Main Dish Steak Salad with Creamy Garlic-Pepper Dressing
- Greek Style Pasta Salad with Green Beans and Tomatoes
- Chicken-Spinach Frittata
