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The absolute best homemade tomato sauce recipe. Using fresh vine ripened tomatoes, caramelized onion and garlic and the ideal temperatures for cooking and simmering, you’ll never go back to store-bought tomato sauce after you try this recipe!
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Not to toot my own horn (but kind of to toot my own horn), but this is definitely the BEST homemade tomato sauce. We’ve been growing tomatoes in our home garden for a few years now and after much experimentation I believe I have finally nailed the perfect flavor for this home made tomato sauce.
What I love most about this recipe is that it doesn’t use any kind of crazy ingredients or labor intensive techniques. It simply uses good, quality ingredients and the best technique all of us can benefit from… Time!
So as August and September roll around and the tomato season kicks into high gear I figured I’d get this delicious homemade tomato sauce recipe out to you so you can be prepared. I know I’ll be making many more batches!
Why Make This Recipe:
Simple ingredients – buying a jar of store-bought tomato sauce may be easy but they oftentimes contain extra ingredients that simply aren’t necessary. Making your own tomato sauce allows you to control what you put into your sauce.
Versatile – you can use this tomato sauce on pasta, on pizza, on chicken parmesan or whatever Italian recipe you love!
Perfect for meal prep – you can easily double or triple this recipe and store in the freezer (or can!) to have throughout the year.
What Kind of Tomatoes Should You Use?
Typically plum tomatoes work best in home made tomato sauce. San Marzano tomatoes or roma tomatoes are probably the more famous but honestly any plum tomatoes will work.
Truth be told, you can use ANY tomato varietal in this recipe but slight taste variations will occur due to the different flavor profiles. If you want a traditionally sweet tomato sauce then I’d stick to something like roma tomatoes that you can find at any grocery store.
Ingredients in Home Made Tomato Sauce
- Olive Oil – Ideally use extra virgin olive oil for the best tasting sauce
- Yellow Onion – Use any yellow onion or sweet yellow onion (vidalia is great!)
- Garlic cloves – Ideally use freshly minced garlic rather than the kind in the jar.
- Fresh tomatoes – see notes above regarding types of tomato.
- Oregano – Feel free to use fresh or dried oregano. If using fresh you’ll want to double the amount called for in the recipe.
- Fresh basil – Helps to balance out the flavor but you can omit if you don’t like basil.
- Salt + Pepper – Add more or less to taste if you’re watching sodium levels.
- Brown sugar – this is a secret ingredient I like to include. The sweetness of the brown sugar helps to balance out the acidity of the tomatoes.
How to Make the BEST Homemade Tomato Sauce
STEP 1: COOK ONIONS + GARLIC
Add olive oil and onions to a large sauce pan or dutch oven and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until onions are translucent. Add in garlic and cook for 1-2 more minutes.
STEP 2: ADD TOMATOES AND SIMMER
Add tomatoes and increase temperature to medium-high until mixture starts to boil. Add in oregano, salt and pepper and brown sugar. Once boiling reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer, uncovered for 30 mins, stirring occasionally. Stir in basil.
STEP 3: BLEND IF DESIRED
Continue simmering until preferred consistency is reached, leaving some chunks of tomato in tact. Or if you prefer a smoother consistency use an immersion blender to blend until smooth.
How To Use Your Home Made Tomato Sauce
- On Pasta – use as a spaghetti sauce or in place of any marinara sauce or store-bought sauces.
- On Pizza – Use homemade tomato sauce in place of store-bought sauce.
- In a Casserole – I can’t wait to try this sauce in any casserole that calls for a tomato based sauce. It would be so delicious in my eggplant parmesan casserole.
- As a Sauce/Dip – You can’t go wrong drizzling this on a grain bowl or on roasted veggies or simply as a dipping sauce for veggies. Already dreaming up ideas to dip into this spicy sauce.
Easy Add-Ons + Substitutions
Adding meat – you can easily add ground meat to your recipe (ground beef + ground turkey work best). Before you saute your veggies, add olive oil to a pan and brown your ground meat (roughly 3-5 minutes). Remove from pan and continue with the recipe. Once you’ve blended your sauce, you can add your meat back in and simmer for an additional 20-30 minutes for a delicious meat sauce.
Add parmesan – I purposely omitted parmesan cheese from this recipe in order to keep it vegan or dairy-free for those of you who avoid cheese. However you can always add a little parmesan cheese to this homemade tomato sauce recipe or better yet add a parmesan rind directly to the pot while simmering your sauce.
Add red pepper flakes – looking to add a little spice? Add one to two teaspoons of red pepper flakes to give this home made tomato sauce a little kick!
Add red wine – add a splash of red wine while simmering to give more depth of flavor to your recipe.
Storage Instructions
Refrigerator: Store your homemade tomato sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Freezer: Store in freezer-safe containers in the freezer for up to 6 months. Allow to thaw in the fridge overnight or on the counter for several hours. Heat on stove top.
More Pasta Recipes
- Kale Pesto Pasta
- Tofu Bolognese Sauce
- Spicy Arrabbiata Sauce
- Sun Dried Tomato Pesto Sauce
- Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
- Hidden Veggie Pasta Sauce
Homemade Tomato Sauce
The absolute best homemade tomato sauce recipe. Using fresh vine ripened tomatoes, caramelized onion and garlic and the ideal temperatures for roasting and simmering, you’ll never go back to store-bought tomato sauce after you try this recipe!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Cook
- Cuisine: Italian
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 lbs fresh vine tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 3/4 tsp salt, or more to taste
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves
Instructions
- Add olive oil and onions to a large sauce pan or dutch oven and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes or until onions are translucent.
- Add in garlic and cook for 1-2 more minutes.
- Add tomatoes (including all juices) and increase temperature to medium-high until mixture starts to boil.
- Add in oregano, salt and pepper and brown sugar.
- Once boiling reduce heat to medium-low and let simmer, uncovered for 30 mins, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in basil.
- Continue simmering until preferred consistency is reached. Or if you prefer a smoother consistency use an immersion blender to blend to smooth.
- Top on your favorite pasta or pizza.
- See notes above for storage instructions.
I’m making this right now and even my wife said the house smells delicious! You might have a hit on your hand. We had to adjust the salt a bit, but that’s no biggy. We’re looking forward to canning this batch for the winter. Thank you for the recipe!
So happy to hear that! I’ve made so many batches of this this summer. It’s a huge hit around here!