When the summer garden is overflowing with cherry tomatoes, this roasted cherry tomato sauce is one of the easiest and most rewarding recipes you can make.
Roasting brings out the natural sweetness of the tomatoes while concentrating their flavour, creating a rich homemade sauce with very little effort.
Made with fresh cherry tomatoes, garlic, onion, basil and oregano, this simple roasted tomato sauce is perfect for pasta, pizza, chicken dishes or even as a dipping sauce. The slow roasting process caramelises the tomatoes and gives the sauce a depth of flavour that is difficult to achieve with a traditional stovetop method.
I often make this recipe using cherry tomatoes picked straight from my garden.
Home-grown tomatoes tend to have a more intense flavour than many shop-bought varieties, making them ideal for creating a sweet, vibrant sauce. It’s also a great way to use up a bumper harvest when the plants are producing more tomatoes than you can eat fresh.
Whether you’re looking for an easy pasta sauce, a way to preserve the taste of summer, or simply a delicious recipe for using fresh cherry tomatoes, this roasted cherry tomato sauce is sure to become a favourite.
It freezes well, reheats beautifully and can be enjoyed throughout the year whenever you want a reminder of the growing season.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Rich, sweet flavour from roasted cherry tomatoes
- A great way to use up a bumper tomato harvest
- Easy to make with just a handful of ingredients
- Perfect for pasta, pizza and chicken dishes
- Freezer-friendly for future meals
- Naturally packed with garden-fresh flavour
- Ready with minimal hands-on preparation
How to make Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
Full recipe and ‘step by step video’ is further down the page, but it’s very quick & easy to make:
- Prepare the tomatoes
- Pick the tomatoes, wash & cut into half
- Put tomatoes into a bowl, add 3 tbsp olive oil, oregano and some salt, mix well.
- Put the tomatoes onto the foil lined baking tray – cut face down
- Place in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees C for 25 minutes
- Combine the ingredients
- Add some olive oil into a frying plan and fry the chopped onion and garlic until soft (about 3 to 5 minutes)
- Add the baked cherry tomatoes and a bit of sugar
- Fry until the surplus tomato juice has dried up. (about 5 minutes)
- At the end add the chopped basil and stir well
- Finalise the sauce
- Put the rotary food mill on top of a bowl and add the cooked ingredients
- Simply blend until all the sauce has poured into the bowl
6 Questions about Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce:
1. What are the best tomatoes for making sauce?
The key is to realise that all tomatoes will produce slightly different type of sauces.
For example a variety like
- The Roma Tomato – is often used in recipes like Bolognese sauce because they are more ‘meaty’ and give a rich flavour.
- San Marzano tomato – is similar to the Roma one but slightly sweeter.
- And the Cherry tomato – has a lovely sweet taste, and can have a more concentrated flavour than other types.
When making this recipe then cherry tomatoes will produce a sweet ‘happy’ flavour that is completely unique.
2. Are home grown cherry tomatoes better than shop bought ones?
It all depends….
The picture shows the cherry tomatoes I grow at home – they tend to be slightly smaller than the tomatoes you will buy in shops but have a much stronger flavour (less ‘watery’)
If you buy cherry tomatoes in the shop the key is to compare them because they do tend to vary a lot.
For the more ‘watery’ ones then make sure you dry them in the oven for slightly longer to concentrate the flavour.
On the other hand growing them at home is easy, they look great and it’s very enjoyable when you start seeing the tomatoes appear on the plant – Cherry tomato growing advice & recipes
3. Why use oven-drying for cherry tomatoes?
The main reason is that oven drying will caramelize the tomatoes giving a more intense, concentrated flavour.
In addition, when adding oregano and a bit of salt this a very easy way to add some additional flavour.
4. Why did you use a rotary food mill and not a food processor?
When cooking with cherry tomatoes you can end up with more seeds and skin then other tomatoes.
Yes you can use a food processor but you might have to spin it quite long to get a smooth sauce.
On the other hand a food mill is a lot easier – the beauty is that you can simply select the disk type to make a sauce as smooth or ‘lumpy’ as you would like.
In the video I used the medium disk to get a quite thick, smooth sauce.
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5. Can I make a creamy cherry tomato sauce?
Yes, you can.
All you do is put the sauce back in the frying pan after you’ve made it using the rotary food mill or processor. Then add some cream and reheat for 1 to 2 minutes.
There tend to be 3 cream options you can use.
Option 1 – double (heavy) cream
Add 200 ml of the heavy cream or if you prefer a non-dairy option:
Option 2– Coconut double cream
Personally I prefer the taste of coconut double cream, which is dairy free, soya free and low in sugar. However it does tend to be quite difficult to find in shops.
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Option 3 – Oatly vegan cream
The alternative is to use vegan cream – which is quite easy to find in shops or online at Amazon. It is great to use as an alternative to ‘normal’ dairy based cream and tastes just as good.
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6. What’s the best way to store it?
When made you should ideally use it within 2 day – keeping it in a fridge.
The best alternative is to freeze it, in which case it will keep 6 to 12 months.
When using it again add a little bit of water to get the best possible taste.
Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce Recipe
Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
Equipment
- 1 frying pan
- 1 Rotary Food mill – see note
- 1 Large Bowl
- 1 Knife and chopping board
- 1 Baking tray
- Aluminium foil
Ingredients
- 500 g Cherry tomatoes
- 2 sprigs Basil
- 1 Onion
- 4 cloves Garlic
- 2 tsp Oregano
- 5 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 tsp Sugar
- Salt and Pepper
Instructions
Prepare the ingredients
- Pick the tomatoes, wash & cut into half
- Put tomatoes into a bowl, add 3 tbsp olive oil, oregano and some saltmix well.
Bake the cherry tomatoes
- Put the tomatoes onto the foil lined baking tray – cut face down
- Place in a pre-heated oven at 200 degrees C for 25 minutes
Combine all ingredients
- Add some olive oil into a frying plan and fry the chopped onion and garlic until soft (about 3 to 5 minutes)
- Add the baked cherry tomatoes and a bit of sugar
- Fry until the surplus tomato juice has dried up. (about 5 minutes)
- At the end add the chopped basil and stir well
Finalise the sauce
- Put the rotary food mill on top of a bowl and add the cooked ingredients
- Simply blend until all the sauce has poured into the bowl
Make your meal
- Simply add to cooked pasta when ready or you can make it in advance and re-heat when required
Video
Notes
FAQ Roasted cherry tomato sauce recipe questions
1. Can you freeze cherry tomato sauce? Yes, simply put in a container and defrost when required 2. Do you need to peel cherry tomatoes? No you don’t, simply wash them before use and then cut in half 3. Why roast cherry tomatoes before making sauce? Because it will caramelize the tomatoes giving a more intense, concentrated flavour. 4. How long does homemade tomato sauce last? You can store it for 2 to 3 days in a fridge – or up to 12 months in a freezer 5. Can I make this without a food mill? Yes you can, either use a food processor or blender.Nutrition
How to use roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
There are 2 main ways you can use it:
1. Combined with pasta, meat or salad
It’s lovely served with pasta, on chicken or with a salad.
The picture on the right shows it combined with spaghetti, some Parmesan cheese and garlic bread.
All you do is heat the sauce in a saucepan, cook the spaghetti and then combine the 2.
2. As a passata replacement
In addition I’ve started using it more and more as a passata replacement when making sauces.
For example when making a recipe like Spaghetti Bolognese then replacing passata with the roasted cherry tomato sauce will give the recipe a lovely extra sweet fresh flavour.
The country recipe challenge.
This recipe is part of my country recipe challenge, where I am trying to find 1 recipe from each country in the world.
The easiest way to keep updated is to follow me on either my Instagram or Facebook page.
Have you made the recipe?
Would love to hear what you thought of it
More information
We have articles that provide ‘step by step’ advice on how to grow basil, oregano and/or tomatoes, which type to select and how to use it in recipes.
- Basil – how to grow and cook with it
- Oregano – how to grow and cook with it
- Tomatoes – how to grow and cook with it
Other tomato recipes
Tomatoes are lovely for making recipes – they are easy to grow at home and fresh tomatoes make a real difference to taste.
Roasted Cherry Tomato Sauce
Oven dried Roma tomatoes
Simple Chorizo sauce pasta
Fresh Tabbouleh Salad
Simple to make Chicken stew with a lovely flavour
