In this roasted cherry tomato sauce, cherry tomatoes, onions, and garlic get caramelized and jammy in the oven, intensifying the flavors and creating a full-flavored rich sauce with lots of complexity. This homemade sauce is a delicious way to use up your cherry tomatoes, and it's an easy one pan recipe with just 10 minutes of active prep time. It's a luscious and versatile tomato sauce that can be used on everything from pasta and pizza to meatballs and sandwiches.
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I was so blown away by the delicious complex flavor of this sauce that I had to force myself to stop eating it straight from the jar.
If you have a large amount of cherry tomatoes to use up, this roasted cherry tomato pasta sauce is a mouth-watering way to serve them, and it freezes really well.
It's an easy and versatile sauce that pairs beautifully with pasta, meatballs, or even pizza.
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⭐️ Why This Sauce is the Best
- Roasted cherry tomatoes, onions, and garlic get caramelized and jammy in the oven, intensifying the flavors and creating a full-flavored rich sauce with lots of complexity.
- Quick and easy one (sheet) pan recipe with just 10 minutes of active prep time.
- An excellent way to use up your summer cherry tomatoes!
- Versatile cherry tomato sauce recipe that can be used on so many things, like pasta, pizza, meatballs, and sandwiches
- Healthy vegetarian spaghetti sauce recipe that's naturally dairy-free/vegan, gluten-free, high in fiber, and full of nutrients like potassium, vitamin C, and vitamin K.
🍅 Ingredient Notes
- Cherry tomatoes - You will need about 6 cups for this recipe. I used a mixture of red, orange, and yellow cherry tomatoes, which is why my sauce does not look bright red.
- Yellow onion - You can substitute a red onion or 3-4 medium shallots for a similar flavor profile.
- Garlic - Adds deep flavor and balances out the acidity of the tomatoes
- Fresh basil leaves - Adds fresh summery herbyness
- Fresh thyme - Provides complexity to our delicious sauce
- Red pepper flakes - These are completely optional, but I love a subtle spicy bite in my tomato sauce.
📝 Variations & Substitutions
- Use frozen cherry tomatoes - You can roast them straight from the freezer, but you should add 10-15 minutes to the cooking time (remove the other ingredients from the pan at the 1 hour mark).
- Grape tomatoes - Sometime it's hard to tell the difference between grape tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, but grape tomatoes have a thicker skin and are not as sweet as cherry tomatoes. That said, you can absolutely use them here for a very similar-tasting sauce.
- Spicy sauce: Add 1-2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes for a spicy tomato sauce.
- Herbs: If you're not a fan of basil and/or thyme, you can swap in rosemary or oregano for a different herby flavor.
🔪 How to Make Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Onto a large baking sheet, place the cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper. Pour olive oil over all ingredients, and stir with a large spoon, making sure to coat all of the ingredients really well with olive oil. Spread vegetables out evenly.
Roast for 1 hour, until the tomatoes have burst and shriveled, and onions are caramelized.
Carefully transfer half of ingredients on sheet pan (you will purée your sauce in two batches) into a food processor or blender. Make sure that you scrape off all the crunchy bits stuck on the pan - that's flavor! Add fresh basil (and red pepper flakes, if using) and blend until you reach your desired consistency and texture.
Transfer sauce to a medium bowl and purée the remaining ingredients. Pour sauce into canning jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. You will have about 3 ½ cups of sauce.
👩🏼🍳 Expert Tips
- Storage: Store your sauce (in an airtight container) in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- How to freeze: After your sauce has completely cooled, pour it into quart-sized freezer bags (or freeze it in glass jars, leaving room at the top to allow for expansion) and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. To thaw, place in the fridge overnight.
- How to reheat sauce: Pour sauce into a skillet over medium-low heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until heated through.
- Thicken it up. If your sauce turns out too watery, read my post on how to thicken pasta sauce.
- Choose your consistency. You can make your sauce thick and chunky, or very smooth and thin; there's no wrong way to eat it. The longer you purée it, the thinner and smoother it will become.
- Can it! This sauce is meant to be stored in the refrigerator or freezer and is NOT shelf-stable. If you want to make this sauce using the water bath canning method, check out these easy instructions on how to create shelf-stable tomato sauce.
- Double it. You will end up with about 3 ½ cups of total sauce, but you can easily double or triple the recipe if you have a lot of cherry tomatoes to use up.
🍝 How to Serve Your Sauce
Despite the fact that I could eat an entire bowl of this rich and luscious sauce as-is, there are so many ways to serve it. Here are some suggestions:
- Pair it with pasta for an easy weeknight dinner or use it to make lasagna
- Drizzle it over any cooked protein, like fish, beans, tofu, or chicken
- Use it as a condiment for sandwiches
- Serve it with meatballs
- Use it for pizza sauce
- Spread it on crusty bread
💬 Frequently Asked Questions
Turn them into tomato sauce by roasting with onions, garlic, herbs and olive oil. It intensifies their flavor and transforms them into a rich and bold-flavored sauce.
Yes, to freeze, place them in a freezer-safe bag and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Cherry tomatoes don't need to be peeled to make sauce. In fact, the tomato skin contains flavonols, which are plant-based antioxidants. However, if you really want to peel them, here are instructions for how to peel cherry tomatoes.
🍽 Related Posts
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Oven Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Food processor or blender
Ingredients
- 2 pounds cherry tomatoes, stems removed (about 6 cups)
- 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, smashed and skins removed
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme, stems removed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 handful fresh basil leaves
- pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Onto a large baking sheet, place the cherry tomatoes, onion, garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper. Pour olive oil over all ingredients, and stir with a large spoon, making sure to coat all of the ingredients really well with olive oil. Spread vegetables out evenly.
- Roast for 1 hour, until the tomatoes have burst and shriveled, and onions are caramelized.
- Carefully transfer half of ingredients on sheet pan (you will purée your sauce in two batches) into a food processor or blender. Make sure that you scrape off all the crunchy bits stuck on the pan - that's flavor! Add fresh basil (and red pepper flakes, if using) and blend until you reach your desired consistency and texture.
- Transfer sauce to a medium bowl and purée the remaining ingredients.
- Pour sauce into canning jars and store in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Or, store it in the freezer (make sure to leave at least 1-inch of space at the top of the jar for expansion) for up to 3 months. You will have about 3 ½ cups of sauce.
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Notes
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- Storage: Store your sauce (in an airtight container) in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
-
- How to freeze: After your sauce has completely cooled, pour it into quart-sized freezer bags (or into glass jars, leaving space at the top for expansion) and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. To thaw, place in the fridge overnight.
-
- Choose your consistency. You can make your sauce thick and chunky, or very smooth and thin; there's no wrong way to eat it. The longer you purée it, the thinner and smoother it will become.
-
- Double it. You will end up with about 3 ½ cups of total sauce, but you can easily double or triple the recipe if you have a lot of cherry tomatoes to use up.
- Serve it with pasta, meatballs, or use it as pizza sauce. Check out my recent post for more ideas on how to use leftover pasta sauce!
Bsrb
I love how many uses there are for this sauce!
MaryAnne
Same! I added it to a cheese sandwich over the weekend!
Jenny
Let me start by saying, I very rarely leave reviews for anything. Something has to be exceedingly wonderful, or exceedingly horrible for me to leave a review . That being said, this is hands-down, the best sauce I have ever made! I have been making sauce from fresh tomatoes for years, but nothing I have made has ever tasted like this! Perfectly sweet, savory, smoky, all at the same time in a perfect balance. And it was so easy! Roast, throw in basil, purée. That’s it! done! My son, who is a major “foodie”, said this sauce was better than restaurant quality. I can’t wait to try your other recipes. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
MaryAnne
Hi Jenny, thank you so much! 😊 I also love this sauce, and could honestly slurp it from a bowl on a daily basis. 😂 Thanks for taking the time to leave such a kind review!
Kristen
Wow, this sauce is fantastic! My favorite use for it is putting it on a meatball sub. Seriously, you all have to try it...it's so easy and you'll never go back to your old sauce again!
MaryAnne
Thanks so much, Kristen! Adding it to a meatball sub sounds excellent!