Slow-Roasted Tomato Sauce

I love slow-roasted tomatoes and slow-roasted tomato sauce.  In the past month, I’ve become the tomato scavenger of the neighborhood, gladly accepting all giveaways from generous gardeners. (Jen, Heidi, Helena, thanks!)

I made slow-roasted tomato sauce last week with the romas that Helena gave me, and froze it. (See directions below). This morning I took the luscious gold and red tomatoes that I got from Jen over the weekend, and made them into my favorite Garden Tomato Bisque (here’s the recipe), from my cookbook, “Soup’s On!” The original recipe calls for tomato paste, but my sauce is almost as thick as tomato paste, and it has so much fresh flavor. This soup is so darn easy to make, it only took a half hour, even with peeling the tomatoes.

I took some of the soup to a good friend who is recovering from a surgery-gone-wrong. It felt so good to chat over bowls of soup for lunch! It’s been awhile since we’ve talked, because she’s been in and out of the hospital for over a month. We walked three laps around her cul-de-sac, too — a good sign that her health is slowly improving.

If you have a lot of tomatoes from your garden (or you just want to preserve some of that summery, fresh-picked flavor to enjoy in winter) here are directions for making the Slow-Roasted Tomato Sauce, which pretty much hassle-free.

Since tomatoes contain a lot of liquid, homemade sauces usually require hours of stovetop simmering to thicken. But if you roast them in the oven at a low, slow temperature —  around 175 to 200 degrees — it removes most of moisture. Several pounds of tomatoes can be condensed down into a few cups of sauce that can be stored in your freezer for later use.

Also, you don’t have to peel them. One you take them out of the oven,  you just pinch the skins pull them off.

Roasting caramelizes the tomatoes’ natural sugars, giving them a deep, rich sweetness. I will often snack on a few on the roasted tomatoes on their own, or tuck them into a sandwich. Roasted tomato BLTs are really great!

For me, it’s preferable to home canning tomatoes. USDA guidelines state that quart jars of tomato products should be processed in a boiling water bath for 95 minutes, for Wasatch Front altitudes.  That’s a lot of hot water sloshing around on your stove and steaming up your kitchen.

The drawback to slow-roasting is that it ties up your kitchen for a long period of time — eight to ten hours. And, it adds some heat to your kitchen, although the temperature is low.

Because of this, I often let my tomatoes roast during the night, and wake up thinking I’m in an Italian restaurant.

UPDATE: I discovered that I can use my air-fryer to slow-roast small batches of tomatoes! I set the temp at 200 degrees (the Keep Warm option). Omit the olive oil. Instead of placing the tomatoes skin-side up, I place the skin side down on the rack, sprinkle with salt and herbs, and let them cook for about 4-6 hours. Great results!  

Whatever you do, don’t get impatient and turn up the heat. I tried roasting a batch of tomatoes at 350 degrees, After an hour, the skins were charred and the tomatoes had a burnt flavor. The kitchen also reeked.

The following recipe uses plum tomatoes. The round, slicing-style tomatoes are usually larger and more watery, so add a little more roasting time. If your plum (or roma) tomatoes are small, use lower heat or less roasting time.

ROASTED TOMATO SAUCE

About 20-25 medium-size plum tomatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

Italian seasoning (dried basil, rosemary, oregano), optional

About 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Spread the olive oil on a large baking sheet or pizza stone. Sprinkle it with the herbs, if using, and salt. You can also use a silicone baking mat (Silpat).

2. Cut off the stems of the tomatoes and cut each tomato in half lengthwise.

3. Place the tomatoes cut-side down on the pan. It’s OK if they touch; they will shrink during cooking.

4. Turn the oven to 200 degrees. Place the tomatoes in the oven and let them roast for about 6-8 hours.

5. Check occasionally to make sure they’re not burning. You can turn down the temperature as low as 170 if you need to let the tomatoes roast longer.

6. The tomatoes should look shriveled and dark red, but still pliable. Turn off the oven and let them cool for a half hour or more.

Pinch the skins; they should lift off.  Place the tomatoes in a blender or food processor and puree. You can leave the sauce a little chunky if desired.

You may want to strain the sauce through a sieve to remove seeds, but I think the seeds are the proud badge of a homemade sauce.

This recipe makes about 2 to 3 cups of very thick tomato sauce, but not quite as thick as tomato paste. You can freeze it, or use it immediately on pasta, pizza and any other way that you would use tomato sauce.

Click here for my Garden Tomato Bisque recipe.

Here are two other bloggers that have featured Slow-Roasted Tomatoes.

Kalyn’s Kitchen http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2006/08/how-to-make-slow-roasted-tomatoes.html 

Apron Strings http://www.apronstringsblog.com/tag/roasted-tomatoes