Roasted Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes {Video}

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This Roasted Marinara Sauce is a simple way to preserve fresh, ripe tomatoes at their peak and bring out their natural flavor. We slow cook them with just a few basic ingredients, like onions, garlic and basil, to make the most delicious homemade marinara sauce.

Jump to:

• Roasted Marinara Sauce Video Tutorial
• Roasted Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes
• How to Roast Tomatoes
• Best Tomatoes to Use For Roasted Marinara Sauce
• Uses For Your Homemade Marinara Sauce
• Ingredients in Roasted Marinara Sauce
• How to Make Homemade Marinara with Fresh Tomatoes
• How to Store Roasted Marinara Sauce
• Can I Freeze Roasted Marinara Sauce?
• Roasted Marinara Sauce

Roasted Marinara Sauce Video Tutorial

Roasted Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes

The best time to make this fresh tomato marinara sauce is towards the end of the summer when tomatoes are at their peak.  If you have your own garden, you will definitely appreciate a tasty use for the abundance of tomatoes at this time!  If you don’t, you should still be able to find nice ripe tomatoes at your local grocery store.  Tomatoes in the winter just aren’t the same.

If you have never tried, let us be the first to tell you that making homemade marinara from fresh tomatoes is much simpler than you might think.  Most of the time involved is babysitting your tomatoes and onions to make sure they don’t burn.  Otherwise, you’re basically just stirring and tasting!

We highly recommend making enough to save some for later, whether you store in the fridge, freezer or jar.  Tomato season only comes once a year, so make the most of it!

How to Roast Tomatoes

Roasting fresh tomatoes couldn’t be more simple.  We like the sheet pan tomatoes method, which involves just a few easy steps:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Cut tomatoes into quarters and remove any stems.
3. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and any other fresh herbs you might want to use.
4. Roast for 30-35 minutes, or until they begin to turn golden brown on top.
5. Remove from the oven and use in your homemade Roasted Marinara Sauce.

Best Tomatoes to Use For Roasted Marinara Sauce

Our favorite grocery store tomatoes to use for sauce are Roma tomatoes, hands down.  They have very few seeds and their flesh is incredibly meaty and flavorful.  If you are a gardener and want to try to grow your own heirloom varieties, the following ripe tomatoes make excellent Roasted Marinara Sauce, but are difficult to find fresh in the store:

• Amish Paste tomatoes
• San Marzano tomatoes
• Viva Italia tomatoes
• Polish Linguisa tomatoes

Uses For Your Homemade Marinara Sauce

Probably the most common use for Roasted Marinara Sauce is as spaghetti sauce for pasta.  However, there are so many other great uses!  This homemade version will really elevate any dish that you use it in.  Some of our favorite uses are:

• Use for the sauce in our Easy Lasagna, Baked Ziti, 4 Cheese Stuffed Pasta or any other red sauce pasta dish you can think of.
• As dipping sauce for Homemade Cheesy Breadsticks, Copy Cat Olive Garden Breadsticks or Soft Pretzel Bites
• In any sort of Parmesan, including Oven-Baked Chicken Parmesan and Homemade Chicken Parmesan
• For pizza sauce or stuffed into Homemade Calzones
• Served with chicken cutlets or Spicy Italian Meatballs

Ingredients in Roasted Marinara Sauce

• • Olive Oil - this lends a great flavor to the finished sauce.
  • Onions - we used a yellow onion, however you could easily substitute white onions.
  • Garlic - we like to use fresh garlic for marinara sauce, but you could also use ¾ tablespoon of garlic powder.
  • Tomatoes - we prefer to use Roma tomatoes, or any heirloom variation of these.  They have minimal seeds with meaty, flavorful flesh.
  • Sugar - a very little bit goes a long way in taming some of the acidity from all of the tomatoes.  You could also substitute maple syrup if you want to use a more natural sugar.
  • Basil - you want to use fresh basil if possible.
  • Bay Leaves - fresh bay leaves have the most powerful flavor.  A helpful hint is to store your fresh basil in the freezer since you won’t use it very often.  It will last for up to 6 months stored this way.
  • Onion Powder - this adds a nice sweetness.
  • Salt and Pepper
  • Baking Soda - a tiny amount of baking soda will help to mellow the acidity of all of the tomatoes by bringing the ph down a touch.
  • Balsamic Vinegar - this really rounds out the overall flavor of your sauce, but is entirely optional.

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How to Make Homemade Marinara with Fresh Tomatoes

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Lay the quartered tomatoes on a large baking sheet.  Drizzle with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Roast the tomatoes in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the tomatoes are golden on top. 
4. While the tomatoes are roasting, heat a large sauce pot over medium high heat and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Once heated, add the onions and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions have turned translucent and begun to caramelize.  Reduce the heat to low and continue cooking and stirring occasionally until they turn a deep, rich, golden hue, or about 20 minutes total.
5. Once the onions are caramelized, add the garlic and saute until the garlic is soft, about 2-3 more minutes, then remove from heat until the tomatoes are finished roasting.
6. Once the tomatoes have roasted, remove from the oven and transfer them to the pot with the onions, discarding any watery tomato juice.  Mix with a spatula, then use an immersion blender (or carefully transfer to a blender or food processor in batches) and blend until there are no large chunks.
7. Add the sugar, basil, bay leaves, onion powder, salt, baking soda and balsamic vinegar and stir to combine, then return to heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes to reduce slightly and to combine the flavors. Taste and season with more salt and pepper if desired.
8. Use immediately, or cool completely and transfer to an airtight container to store in the fridge or freezer.

How to Store Roasted Marinara Sauce

You are welcome to can your sauce if you would like, but here’s a little secret - you don’t have to.  Unless you have quart after quart of sauce, you will do just fine either storing leftovers in the fridge or the freezer.  

To store in the fridge, transfer your cooled marinara sauce into an airtight container for up to 7 days.  

Can I Freeze Roasted Marinara Sauce?

Yes - we absolutely recommend making enough to freeze, especially if you have a surplus of fresh garden tomatoes to use up.  Just make sure and cool your sauce completely, then transfer 1-2 cups of sauce into each freezer bag, laying them flat in the freezer.  You can store frozen for up to 5 months!

To reheat, transfer directly into a saucepot and heat over low, or else thaw in the fridge overnight and use as needed the next day.

Other Tips for Roasting Tomatoes

• If you’re using a metal pan, make sure it’s not made of aluminum, which can react with the acidity of the tomatoes.
• It's best to use a  baking rack, you can roast tomatoes on parchment-lined baking sheets or glass baking dishes with a thin coating of olive oil.

Here are some more homemade sauce recipes that we love!

• Easy Alfredo Sauce
• Best Homemade Sun-dried Tomato Alfredo Sauce
• Cranberry Orange Sauce
• Homemade Marinara Sauce
• Buffalo Sauce

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This Roasted Marinara Sauce uses fresh tomatoes at their peak to make the most delicious and simple sauce. We slow cook them with just a few basic ingredients, like onions, garlic and basil, to bring out the best tomato flavor.