It’s been a good year for tomatoes here in the UK. If you have more than you know what to do with, try making this easy tomato sauce. It captures the taste of summer beautifully and can be squirrelled away to remind us of warmer days when the nights draw in. If you’ve never made tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes before, this recipe is a good place to start. It takes a little time to cook, but the preparation is easy.
September Harvest
September is one of my favourite months. I may already have mentioned this. The days are still warm and light and the end-of-summer harvest is in full swing. Tomatoes are cheap and plentiful, chillies are ripening and herbs are still abundant.
This is the first year for a long time we’ve been able to grow tomatoes. So exciting. And what a year it’s been. As well as our own salad tomatoes, CT has been bringing home bucket loads of cooking tomatoes from work. They’ve been fantastic. Purple Calabash and Brad’s Black Heart are my particular favourites.
Between us, we’ve grown everything in this recipe apart from the salt and tamari. If you grow your own, it’s easy to make this sauce entirely organic, as ours is. I expect that’s why the soil association hold their annual #OrganicSeptember campaign in September.
Easy Tomato Sauce
What makes this tomato sauce so easy? Using a blender right at the beginning of the process. Yes you still have to peel the onions and garlic and wash the tomatoes and herbs, but you don’t have to worry about peeling the tomatoes. I don’t have either the time or inclination for such niceties and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
There’s no fine slicing required either. Just bung everything into a blender and blitz until smooth. Then it’s just a case of cooking it down until the sauce is rich and flavoursome and has thickened enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon. Easy peasy.
It’s best to use ripe tomatoes, but don’t worry if they’ve gone over a bit; as long as they aren’t rotten, they’re good to go. In fact this easy tomato sauce is a great way of using up squishy tomatoes.
Sugar is often added to tomato sauce as it can sometimes be a bit sour, but that’s really not necessary here. The sauce gets naturally sweeter as it cooks and reduces. I like to add a dash of tamari which helps to bring out the tomatoes’ natural umami flavours, but this is entirely optional. Tamari is a high quality gluten-free form of soy sauce and it’s the only one I use.
Recipes In Which This Easy Tomato Sauce Can Be Used
The beauty of this easy tomato sauce is that it’s very versatile. You can use it as it is with pasta or on a pizza or add it to to rice or other grain dishes. It’s good for flavouring soups and stews or you can use it as a base to add all sorts of other ingredients. It could easily be used to replace the tomato sauce in any of the following Tin and Thyme recipes:
- Courgette sweetcorn fritters with chilli tomato sauce
- Green veggie meatballs in tomato sauce
- Kefir kale pancakes
- Miso marinated tofu with My Pasta’s Last Stand
- Quick and easy pasta supper
- Romanesco pasta with lemon & garlic
- Stuffed red peppers in tomato sauce
- Squash, walnut and goat’s cheese pizza
- Vegan rice bowl with maple tofu and smoked tomato sauce
5 Ways to Tweak This Easy Tomato Sauce
1. Tomatoes
Experiencing a glut of tomatoes? Found a large pallet at a reduced price at your local market? Only have half a kilo of tomatoes? You can easily adjust the quantities to suit the number of tomatoes you have. This recipe is more of a guide than an exact measure of ingredients needed. Just make sure you have a big enough pan available if going for more than the quantity stated in this recipe.
2. Green Herbs
Fresh green herbs are also a great way to capture that taste of summer. We’ve grown masses of basil this year. Unlike me, it really enjoyed the heat. It’s highly recommended for this easy tomato sauce as there’s nothing quite like basil for summer scent and flavour. But you can add whatever herbs you particularly like or have to hand. I added thyme and marjoram, both of which we have in the garden.
3. Red Chillies
Use any red chilli of your choice, depending on how hot you like your sauce. Although I’m a bit of a chilli head, I used a small medium hot chilli we’ve been growing this year. You can always add more heat, but it’s hard to take it away. This easy tomato sauce should be versatile enough that it can be used in whatever recipe is desired, so just a hint of heat is a safer bet. Likewise, to seed or not to seed the chilli is your choice. The seeds are generally where most of the heat is stashed. Don’t like chilli or have family members who can’t tolerate it? Just leave it out. The sauce will still be delicious.
4. Blenders
Don’t have a good blender? You could use a food processor to make a chunkier version of this sauce or even chop it all finely by hand. Since acquiring my first high speed blender, I’ve not had to think twice about making this type of sauce.
It’s the blender that makes it so easy; there’s no need for excessive chopping. I used my optimum Vac2 Air Vacuum Blender, but any of the Froothie blenders I’ve used would do a fine job on this.
5. Different Flavour Profile
If you’d prefer to have a spicier Asian flavour to this easy tomato sauce rather than the Italian one I’ve given it, just ditch the green herbs and add your favourite spices instead. Cumin is always good with tomatoes I find and cinnamon works nicely too.
Keep in Touch
Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this easy tomato sauce, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.
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If you’d like more sauce recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Easy Tomato Sauce. Pin It.
Easy Tomato Sauce – The Recipe
Easy Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 2-3 onions peeled
- 1 garlic bulb cloves separated out and peeled
- 2 ½ kilo ripe tomatoes washed
- 1 red chilli
- 1 handful basil leaves washed
- 6 sprigs fresh thyme (optional) hard stems removed
- 6 sprigs marjoram or oregano (optional) hard stems removed
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 dash tamari (affiliate link) (optional)
Instructions
- Roughly chop the onions and throw into a good blender. Add the garlic cloves, chilli and herbs.
- Depending on size, you may need to roughly chop the tomatoes. Add them to the blender and blitz until you have a smooth (ish) consistency.
- Pour into a large lidded pan. Add the salt and tamari, if using. Cover and bring to the boil.
- Turn the heat down and let the sauce simmer gently for ten minutes.
- Take the lid off the pan, turn the heat up so that the sauce continues to bubble. Let it cook down until reduced by half when it should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 1 hour. Stir occasionally so it doesn’t burn on the bottom.
- Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly, then pour into sterilised glass jars if keeping in the fridge, or suitable containers if freezing.
- Allow the sauce to cool before putting the lids on.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Estimate
Sharing
I’m sending this easy tomato sauce recipe off to #CookBlogShare, hosted by A Strong Coffee this week and #CookOnceEatTwice with Searching for Spice.
Balvinder says
Just awesome! I can see many lovely dishes coming in winter.
Choclette says
Thank you. There’ll be plenty of dishes needing this sauce for sure. Just wish I could make more of it.
Dems Banjo says
Hmmmm, very interesting! I love this idea Choclette, thanks for sharing.
Choclette says
Hopefully it’s delicious and practical as well as interesting 🙂
Claire Jessiman says
Alas I’ve never had success with growing tomatoes but vividly recall from my childhood the amazing smell of them in my grandfathers greenhouse. What a great way to preserv their taste over the winter months.
Choclette says
Thanks Claire. I expect it’s a bit trickier growing tomatoes up in the cold North 😉 Tomatoes remind me of my grandfather too. He used to work in a tomato nursery.
Louise Fairweather says
I have made my own salsa but never tomato sauce. I bet this tastes amazing. Thanks for linking up #cookblogshare
Choclette says
Tomato sauce all ready and waiting for just when you need it is the bees knees.
Emma says
Omg it really was a good year for tomatoes wasn’t it!!! Sadly we’ve only got the odd one or two left on our plants. Will have to nip to the farm shop and stock up to make this!
Choclette says
Glad you did well with yours to Emma. Homegrown tomatoes are such a treat.
Kavita Favelle says
Love the idea of blitzing the ingredients to a smooth sauce consistency before cooking the sauce down, that’s a great way to do it! We didn’t have a good year for toms at all, ours struggled with the high levels of heat we had this summer!
Choclette says
It’s interesting how different everyone’s were. I don’t think much liked it when it was really hot, but as soon as it got a bit cooler they just kept coming and coming – they still are.
Jo Allison / Jo's Kitchen Larder says
Your sauce sounds wonderful. I’ve been kept tomato happy this season by my lovely friend whose grandad grows cherry tomatoes so we’ve been having them in salads, pastas, roasted etc. I would love to get some of your gorgeous sauce on the go though so will have a look whether I can get my hands on some lovely, nice size tomatoes to make a batch or two. 🙂
Choclette says
That’s fantastic Jo. There’s just nothing quite like homegrown tomatoes and it’s so nice to be generous with them too.
Cathy @ Planet Veggie says
Whatever the opposite of a glut is, that’s what I’ve got of tomatoes 🙂 Runner beans, on the other hand… well, I’d need fifty hands to hold them all! It’s my first year of growing stuff though so it’s all very exciting and I love seeing what other people have grown.
Choclette says
Oh noooo! We usually have a complete glut of runner beans, but they did really badly this year because of the hot weather. Well done for having a go and hopefully you’ll have an even more successful year next year.
Phil in the Kitchen says
Delicious. This would make a very fine variation (or two) to my usual tomato sauce and I’ve had plenty of tomatoes to use up this year. I grow my tomatoes in veg beds and it has been a great tomato year for me but some people who grow in greenhouses have told me that they’ve had fewer tomatoes than usual. I suppose it can be too hot even for tomatoes sometimes.
Choclette says
Yes, I think that was true in the heat of summer, but the autumn August / September harvest in CT’s work greenhouse has been phenomenal. Our outdoor tomatoes did really well too. I’ve just loved having an abundance of tomatoes – very unusual for us.
Corina Blum says
I do like the sound of this tomato sauce, especially as it’s so easy to make. I’d love to try it out as I cook a lot of meals that have tomatoes, onions and garlic in and they could easily be adapted to use this sauce. Thanks for sharing with #CookOnceEatTwice!
Choclette says
It’s really useful to have a ready made tomato sauce to hand and just tomatoes, onions and garlic would make a fine sauce. I do like the addition of basil though 😉
angiesrecipes says
Fantastic! From garden to the table…the sauce must taste extremely fresh and yummy!
Choclette says
It’s just been wonderful having so many lush tomatoes this year. I just want the season to go on – thus the tomato sauce 🙂
Mary says
Your recipe is a good one for using up the last glut that happens at the end of Summer. I like the touch of Tamari.
Your computer has decided it should be tamarind in the list of ingredients but has Tamari in the method. But, I think both would work anyway!!
Thanks for the recipe. 🙂
Choclette says
Haha, thanks for pointing out the tamari tamarind discrepancy. I’ve corrected it now, but you’re right tamarind would probably be a nice addition too.