Easy Homemade Tomato Sauce
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This one pot Homemade Tomato Sauce recipe is the cozy, healthy, flavorful, and oh so delicious sauce you’ll be wanting all year long. Pantry staple canned tomatoes, puréed with sautéed onions, fresh herbs (basil and oregano!), just the right amount of garlic, and a dash of red pepper flakes. All together, it creates a sauce that’s deep in flavor, but only takes 45 minutes or LESS to make! It simply doesn’t get any better. Bonus? This sauce is not just great with pasta, but works perfectly as sauce for pizzas, stirred into savory dishes for a little extra depth of flavor, or even eaten on it’s own like a soup. It’s also naturally gluten-free and vegan! SO. GOOD.
About The Recipe
This tomato sauce is something we have been making for YEARS! It’s a staple recipe in our kitchen. We use it in almost every single savory recipe we make. Whether it’s for lunch or dinner, it’s a must-have! Everyone in our family loves it, even our friends. It’s so good that you could eat it with a spoon like tomato soup!
Typically, we make up a really big batch of this and store it in the freezer, grabbing pre-measured out bags when we need them. Though, I will admit, we always run out way too fast! We make this at least once a month.
So, when we went to mix up another batch, we thought it would be fun to share it with all of you! It’s in SO many of our savory recipes already on the blog (Chicken Parmesan, Tomato Arugula and Feta Pizza, and Zucchini Lasagna just to name a few!!) and it just made sense to share the recipe.
Though, I will be honest, if you’ve read the blog before, you know that I am the only person in my family that doesn’t like tomatoes. Just a weird quirk that I have, I will never be able to figure it out, but this tomato sauce…I could eat BOWLS of this stuff without a complaint!
There’s just something about it, you know?
It’s full of flavor, herbaceous, a touch spicy, and it just tastes like something that’s been cooking on the stove for hours and hours. Like, that’s how much depth it has! But, in all honesty, this recipe is ready to eat in 45 minutes or less.
It’s the perfect sauce for anything, anytime of year, for any diet. It’s definitely the recipe we make the most on our blog, but it’s also just our absolute favorite!
The best part? This sauce is genuinely so much better than anything you could buy and SO easy to make.
Reasons You Will Love This Tomato Sauce
- Naturally vegan, gluten free, keto, and pretty much any other diet!
- Full of flavor without any effort.
- Ready in about 45 minutes or less.
- Perfect for stirring into pasta dishes, casseroles, spreading on pizza, or enjoying just as a soup.
- A real crowd pleaser.
- Can be made ANY time of year!
- Freezes really well.
Equipment Needed
Ingredients
(Full ingredient amounts and instructions can be found in the recipe card at the bottom of the post)
- Olive Oil
- Chopped Onions
- Whole Tomatoes
- Minced Garlic
- Fresh Oregano
- Red Pepper Flakes
- Salt
- Fresh Basil
How To Make Tomato Sauce
Step 1: Sauté onions
Sauté the onions in olive oil over medium-high heat until translucent, about 2-3 minutes.
Step 2: Add tomatoes and cook
Add the tomatoes, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and salt. Bring to a bubble (not a full rolling boil). Reduce the heat to medium to medium low and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Step 3: Add basil and purée
Add the basil and cook an additional 5 minutes.
Use an immersion blender to puree sauce until smooth.
What To Make With Tomato Sauce
With this tomato sauce recipe, the possibilities are ENDLESS! Though, here are a few of our absolute favorite things to make for lunch or a quick weeknight dinner.
- Cheesy Baked Rigatoni
- Easy Chicken Parmesan
- Margherita Pizza
- Spaghetti and Meatballs
- Tomato Arugula and Feta Pizza
- As a dipping sauce for Pull-Apart Pepperoni Pizza Bread or Cheesy Breadsticks
- Stirred into a big bowl of pasta and topped with parmesan cheese
How To Store
Once this tomato sauce is made and cooled, the best way to store it is in freezer safe zip top bags! We like to freeze it in 1 cup measurements that way when grabbing some for a recipe, we know exactly how much to use. The tomato sauce will keep about 3-4 months in the freezer. To thaw, just place on the counter at room temperature for about 30 minutes, run it under some hot water for 3-5 minutes and place it in a pot over low heat to fully reheat.
Substitutions
- You can use fresh tomatoes in this recipe.
- Dried herbs can be used in place of fresh. Though, the amounts will need to be adjusted! About 1 teaspoon of dried oregano and 1 teaspoon of dried basil.
Expert Tips
- This recipe makes a very large amount of tomato sauce!
- 12 cups of tomatoes is equal to one 102 oz. can of whole tomatoes. You can also use seven 15 oz. cans of chopped/diced tomatoes.
- If cooking with whole tomatoes, be sure to break them apart as they cook!
- With the herbs, they do not need to be chopped before adding to the sauce.
- If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can put this in a blender or food processor. Just be very careful!
- This recipe is naturally gluten free, vegan, keto/low carb friendly.
When you make this Easy Homemade Tomato Sauce leave a comment down below! We love hearing from you and answering any questions you might have! Also, be sure to tag us on social media and hashtag it #BakersTable.
Easy Homemade Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 2 cups chopped onion
- 12 cups whole canned tomatoes
- 1 head garlic minced
- 1 Tablespoon fresh oregano
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 1 Tablespoon fresh basil
Instructions
- Sauté onions in olive oil over medium-high heat until translucent, about 2-3 minutes.
- Add tomatoes, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, and salt.
- Bring to a bubble (not a full rolling boil).
- Reduce heat to medium to medium low and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add basil and cook an additional 5 minutes.
- Use an immersion blender to puree sauce.
Notes
- You can use fresh tomatoes in this recipe.
- Dried herbs can be used in place of fresh. Though, the amounts will need to be adjusted! About 1 teaspoon of dried oregano and 1 teaspoon of dried basil
- This recipe makes a very large amount of tomato sauce!
- 12 cups of tomatoes is equal to one 102 oz. can of whole tomatoes. You can also use seven 15 oz. cans of chopped/diced tomatoes.
- If cooking with whole tomatoes, be sure to break them apart as they cook!
- With the herbs, they do not need to be chopped before adding to the sauce.
- If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can put this in a blender or food processor. Just be very careful!
- This recipe is naturally gluten free, vegan, keto/low carb friendly.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
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I just finish making this for the first time and I can’t stop standing over the bowl with my loaf of bread dunking it in for each bite. This is seriously amazing sauce and I’m definitely not someone who can cook. I can bake but savory food is normally out of my wheelhouse. Tomorrow I’m going to be trying the zucchini Lasagna recipe and after tasting this sauce I’m super excited!