Cherry Tomato Pasta Sauce
A tasty and easy pasta sauce with a lot of versatility, perfect for using fresh, frozen, or canned. This recipe is more of a template without exact quantities, but safe canning instructions are included.
Equipment
- 1 Slow cooker (See notes for alternatives)
- 1 Hand blender, blender, or food processor
Ingredients
- Cherry tomatoes (Can use regular tomatoes. See notes for more details.)
- Dried seasonings of your choice (Suggestions include onion powder, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried basil, salt, and pepper. See notes for more details.)
- Olive oil (Or a neutral oil like canola oil)
- Lemon juice (If canning the sauce)
Instructions
- Wash and de-stem tomatoes. If using tomatoes larger than cherry-sized, chop them into halves or quarters, depending on their size.
- Fill the slow cooker with tomatoes. Add a drizzle of olive oil, no more than a few tablespoons. Add in seasonings of choice (see notes for details). Stir.
- Cover and set slow cooker to high and let cook two and a half hours, or until everything looks fully cooked (the juice has released from the tomatoes, cherry tomatoes have popped, etc.). If you prefer to use the low setting, you'll want to let it cook for five hours.
- Using a hand blender / stick blender, blend everything until a smooth consistency. If using a regular blender or a food processor, process in batches until everything is a smooth consistency.
- If using fresh, serve on pasta or dish of choice. Sauce can be refrigerated for next-day use.If freezing, put pasta sauce in meal-size portions in ziplock bags or jars. If using jars, be sure to use jars that do not have "shoulders", and leave some headspace in case the sauce expands while freezing.If canning, add a tablespoon of lemon juice per pint jar or two tablespoons per quart jar. (Do not use a larger size. If using half-pints, add half a tablespoon of lemon juice.) Leave a half-inch of headspace. Wipe rims clean and put on two-part lids, fingertip tight. Process in a boiling water canner for 35 minutes (adjusting for altitude if necessary, see notes for a link). After processing, let sit in canner for 5-10 minutes, then remove jars from canner and place on a towel on a level surface and let sit for 12-24 hours. After this time, check that jars have sealed—unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used within a few days, sealed jars can be stored for up to a year and a half (after which point the flavour quality may degrade, but the safety remains indefinitely). See notes for more information on canning.
Notes
Alternative Methods to Cook the Tomatoes:
This can be made in a slow cooker or in the oven. If using the oven, lay out an even layer of cherry tomatoes in a rimmed baking sheet and bake for 35 minutes at 450 F, until the cherry tomatoes are wrinkly and bursting. You may want to line the baking sheet with parchment paper for easy cleanup. This can create a nice roasted flavour. I've also done a large batch in my dutch oven—all the steps were the same as the oven directions, but in a dutch oven rather than a rimmed baking sheet.
Seasoning Tips:
The seasonings are flexible. For canning safety, as long as you're not adding immense amounts of dried seasoning so that it becomes paste-like, it should be fine. If you're using the sauce fresh or freezing the sauce, feel free to use fresh onion, garlic, and herbs, if you'd like.
I generally eyeball the seasoning to whatever feels right, but if you're the type that needs a recipe to follow, for every eight cups of tomatoes, use 1 Tbsp of onion powder, 1 Tbsp of garlic powder, 1 tsp of oregano, and 1 tsp of basil. My slow cooker holds 12 cups, so if I were going by this formula, I would use 1.5 Tbsp onion powder, 1.5 Tbsp garlic powder, 1.5 tsp oregano, and 1.5 tsp basil. For any amount of seasoning, add salt and pepper to taste.
If you're using fresh ingredients for fresh or frozen sauce, you could switch these out with a medium onion, two cloves of garlic, a few sprigs of oregano, and a few sprigs of basil. If you are using fresh oregano/basil and you are oven-roasting the tomatoes, add the herbs during the blending step, not the roasting step, otherwise you'll have burned herbs (but be sure to pull the oregano leaves from the stem so you don't have chopped up stem in your sauce).
General Tips:
While the original ingredients and recipe called for cherry tomatoes only, this works equally well with larger tomatoes, cut into either halves or quarters, depending on the size. If the larger tomatoes have a thick/firm core, you may want to core the tomatoes as well.
This sauce tastes super good fresh, and just as good frozen or canned. The first year I did this, I froze all the sauce, but for the second year I did this, I canned the sauce. There's really no difference in quality or taste either way. I prefer canning because freezer space is limited, but if you have freezer space and/or canning intimidates you, freezing is an excellent option.
If you are new to canning, click here for a Canning 101 to understand some of these terms and steps. If you have to adjust for altitude because your elevation is greater than 1,000 feet, click here for more information.