Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce

We take pizza pretty seriously here at our house. We’re constantly tinkering with the crust, playing with toppings, and sampling to create the perfect pizza. A homemade sauce from homegrown tomatoes was a natural evolution for our pizza making adventures. It needed to be full of flavor with only the natural sweetness of tomatoes, none of the sugar-laden stuff most commonly found at the grocery store. It was from this pizza-perfecting desire and yearly tinkering with the homegrown tomato crop that this roasted tomato pizza sauce was born.

Why Roast?

Roasting the tomatoes first helps bring out the natural sweetness of the tomatoes as well as convince them to give up some water making the cooking down process go faster. It also seems to deepen the flavor quite a bit.

Paste or roma tomatoes are always nice for sauce because they tend to be less watery but this recipe will work with any type coming in from the garden. Cooking time will vary to make the sauce thick but doing that in the slow cooker means time to do other things beyond standing at the stove and stirring.

Pressure Can or Freeze

I recommend pressure canning this because of the pureed onions, peppers, and garlic. Those things bring down the acidity level of the tomatoes making it iffy for water bath canning without adding some lemon juice to bring up the acidity, which I believe would change the flavor too much.

A half pint jar is usually enough sauce for a 12-inch pizza and means no waste. Pint jars would also work.

If you don’t want can, it will freeze beautifully in jars or other containers.

Get more tips for the great homemade pizza here.

Yield: 6 Pints

Roasted Tomato Pizza Sauce

Print

Preserve summer tomatoes for delicious homegrown pizza all year long with this easy to make and can roasted tomato pizza sauce.

Ingredients

• 10 Pounds Ripe Tomatoes, cut large tomatoes into quarters, small ones in half
• 1 Bulb of Garlic, separated into individual cloves and peeled
• 4 Large Bell Peppers, cut into quarters, seeded and cored
• 2 Large Onions, peeled and cut into quarters
• 4 teaspoons Salt
• 1 Cup Fresh Basil Leaves, chopped
• ½ Cup Fresh Oregano, chopped
• 1 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Place tomatoes, garlic, onion, and bell peppers onto rimmed baking sheets. Use two sheets or shallow roasting pans. Place in preheated oven and roast 30-40 minutes or until vegetables are soft and tomato skins blister.
3. Remove from oven and drain off extra water. Place vegetables in a blender or food process and purée until smooth.
4. Pour the sauce, herbs, salt, and pepper, into a slow cooker. Leave the lid off and turn the cooker onto low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick almost paste like.
5. Pour the hot sauce into jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Put on lids and rings.
6. Process at 10 pounds of pressure (adjusting for elevation) for 35 minutes.

Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

Sharing is caring!