This easy homemade spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes is one of the best sauces I have ever made. Perfect for using up all those tomatoes from your garden for tomato season!
Check out my list of Easy Tomato Recipes for more inspiration, or try this tool for cooking with leftovers to get quick meal inspiration from ingredients you already have.
During August, everyone and their brother started giving me their tomatoes. I also like buying a lot of tomatoes from the farmers market. There are so many great heirlooms out there and they are my favorite. They are great on sandwiches with my homemade pimento cheese and salads.
So, what do I do with all the fresh tomatoes everyone gives me? I taught myself how to make this easy recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce from scratch. It uses all fresh ingredients and fresh produce and is a great way to use up any overripe tomatoes.
This spaghetti sauce is easy to make and tastes better than any store-bought tomato sauce you will buy. It is a rich, hearty sauce made with fresh basil and fresh herbs. I even use this sauce as a pizza sauce.
The best part is that you can make a huge batch of this and freeze it in an airtight container for the winter. I use these freezer containers for all my sauces and soups. I use these freezer containers for all my sauces and soups. One of my most popular soups is my Easy Tomato Soup.
How to Make Spaghetti Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes
You can use whatever tomatoes you want for this recipe. Different tomato varieties will give you a sweet flavor. For me, the best tomatoes are the Purple Cherokee tomatoes, but Beefsteak, Roma tomatoes, San Marzano tomatoes, Pink Girls, or even Brandywine work for this recipe. Honestly, the tomato variety is your personal preference.
You could even use cherry tomatoes and make a cherry tomato sauce for a delicious Summer Pasta Salad or my tomato basil risotto. Cherry tomatoes are even great for recipes like my Whipped Cottage Cheese and Tomatoes.
Start by adding chopped tomatoes, onions, and garlic cloves. Place on a sheet pan, toss with extra virgin olive oil, and roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.
Of course, you can saute onions before putting them on the tray, but that is not needed. Cooking them on a sheet pan is enough to soften them.
Transfer the fresh veggies to a food processor with a slotted spoon and pulse a few times to incorporate them. If you want a smooth sauce, continue pulsing until everything has been chopped up fine. You can also use an immersion blender if you do not have a food processor.
Now, pour it all into a large pot and heat over medium to medium-low heat for about an hour.
While the sauce is simmering, add in the basil, oregano, brown sugar, salt, and pepper.
This sauce keeps developing flavor the longer it cooks. If you want to leave it on longer than an hour, that is fine. It will create a thick sauce as it cooks down some.
When ready to serve, choose your favorite pasta shape and cook it over medium-high heat according to the package directions. If you are up to it, you can make homemade pasta (it tastes so much better!).
Serve the pasta with a big helping of fresh tomato sauce on top and then add as much Parmesan cheese as you want. Trust me when I say I would grate the entire block on my plate if I could.
This easy sauce is great to make this time of year. It has SO much flavor, and it's even better the next day too.
And, if you want to make it a super healthy dish, you can serve it over zucchini noodles.
How to Store Fresh Tomato Sauce
You can store the tomato sauce in an airtight container in the fridge for a few weeks. I like to store mine in a mason jar. If you want to use this for later use, add a little store-bought lemon juice to each mason jar before you water bath can the sauce.
Check out my recipe for How to Make and Can Homemade Tomato Juice.
Check out these other pasta recipes below!
- Mongolian Ground Beef Noodles
- Pasta Extruder Recipe (homemade noodles and pasta)
- One Pan Cheeseburger Pasta
- Viral TikTok Feta Pasta Bake
- Ina Garten Summer Pasta Salad
Of course, if you need a good bread recipe to go with your pasta, make a batch of my Cheesecake Factory Honey Wheat Bread.
Homemade Spaghetti Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes
Homemade spaghetti sauce is so easy and delicious to make. This sauce is made with fresh garden tomatoes. It is rich and hearty and everyone loves it.
Ingredients
- 12-14 tomatoes fresh from the garden
- 1 head of garlic sliced in half
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 10-12 fresh basil leaves
- 1 tablespoon of fresh oregano
- 2 tablespoons of brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon of kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon of pepper
- pasta of your choice
Instructions
- Cut tomatoes into halves and place on a sheet pan. Add the whole head of garlic that you cut in half. Also, add the onion to the sheet pan.
- Drizzle on olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper. Mix the veggies and toss with olive oil.
- Roast in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes.
- Remove the sheet pan from the oven. Allow the tomatoes to cool for about 15 minutes.
- In a food processor, add tomatoes and onions. Squeeze out the garlic cloves into the sauce.
- Add in the herbs and spices.
- Pulse several times until you get the desired cut on your tomatoes. For a chunkier sauce, pulse fewer times. For a finer sauce, continue pulsing until everything has been minced finely.
- Add everything to a saucepot and simmer on low for at least an hour.
- Serve over your favorite pasta noodles.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
6Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 156Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 646mgCarbohydrates: 25gFiber: 4gSugar: 12gProtein: 4g
can you freeze this.
Yes. That is what I do with it when I make it up. I stated that in the post.
@Jennifer Sikora, I made it and it’s so delicious!!!!
I am so happy to hear you loved it!
I am cooking this as I write, and we will have this batch for dinner tonight. My only remark is that it is terribly sweet. I am hoping that after it cooks and gets more flavor of the herbs, it will be less sweet. Our tomatoes and onions taste like they have sugar in them already :), so I will adjust next time if need be. Thank you so very much for this wonderful recipe.
You are so welcome!
How many lbs of tomatoes my tomatoes are large
Not sure how many pounds. My tomatoes were a normal size tomato size, so I think if you have extremely large tomatoes, you could get by with like 6 or 7
Do you blend the tomatoes with the stem ends on or cut them off?
I cut them out
How much dry spices would I use? Oregano is extremely hard to find near me.
I would say 2 teaspoons of oregano and about that same amount for the basil. Taste it after you get it mixed in and add more if you need to.
This recipe pretty much stunk! It didn't make enough to feed my family of 4 and we aren't big people! The onion and garlic did not cook very well, they were still hard so I had to put those back into the oven. The skins on the tomatoes were AWFUL! This was my first time making spaghetti sauce and I definitely won't be using this recipe again.
Hi Melissa I am sorry you feel that way. Everyone else has loved it so maybe you missed a step or something? If you pureed it in your food processor it should have been fine. But then you have to cook it for an hour on the stovetop. I am sorry you had a bad experience.
I made this sauce exactly how the directions state. It had a wonderful flavor but the seeds in the romas did not cook down.
I am sorry that you had issues with the seeds. No one else has so I apologize for that. Keep trying with different tomatoes.
As I have surmised, this recipe is made with cherry tomatoes. Not good with “romas as it makes very seedy sauce.
This recipe does not state which tomato’s to use. Live n learn n get loves. Although very flavorful, but again it was crunchy.
I didn't use cherry tomatoes. I used regular red tomatoes I had on hand. Sorry to disappoint you.
Made this sauce with the last of our garden tomatoes.. love it! I added ground beef and it was just perfect.
It really is. I love how versatile this sauce is.
Hi, I’m new on your web site but you recipe I very interesting. I am wondering if I can add meat to your marinara sauce like hamburger or Italian sausage
Yes you sure can. I do it all the time. I just brown mine in a seperate skillet and then add it to my sauce.
Where has this recipe been all my life?!? So easy. So rich. So delicious. And I love the way my kitchen smells from start to finish. I simmered mine for an hour and a half and it had a thick texture and deep flavor. Thank you for sharing!
The smell alone is a reason to do this, right? It smells amazing!
I made this recipe a couple of weeks ago with fresh tomatoes and it was delicious! My family loved it! I doubled the batch and froze half. I am making another batch and I just removed most seeds prior to roasting the tomatoes. I also blanched my tomatoes first to remove skins.
I am so glad you like it. It is always a favorite here too and a great way to use up those garden tomatoes.
Just made this tonight with the abundance of tomatoes taking over my garden. It was so easy and super delicious!!! Thank you!!
You are so welcome!!
I have a late bumper crop of San Marzano tomatoes- a real treat living in Maine at this time of year - and wasn’t sure what to make with them. I came across this recipe and got excited to try a different way of making sauce. I didn’t read the reviews until after I’d already put the tomatoes, onions and garlic into the oven to roast and was worried I wouldn’t get good results based on one review - boy was that review wrong! The sauce is absolutely perfect and my kids Thayer home from college for the weekend are so excited to eat this tonight for dinner! This will be my next go-to recipe for all things tomato! The seasoning was perfect too. Thank you!
I am so glad to hear you loved it! Thank you for not paying attention to one negative review and making your own decisions about the dish. This is our go to pasta sauce for everything!
Thank you for the instructions. I did change the recipe and added some things and did not use sugar. But I had no idea how to make homemade spaghetti sauce among other things that I still do not know how. I am grateful for you posting this recipe. Everything was soft including the seeds. Although my sauce wasn't as red as the pictures but tasted AMAZING.
glad you liked it
Am I able to use both big tomatoes and cherry tomatoes? At the moment I have 4 big tomatoes i need to use before they go bad, and a big bowl of cherry ones. Can I mix?
Yes. You can use any kind of tomatoes you have on hand. I have done a combo of both big and little. This process works the same for all of them.
Can this be made in the crock pot?
Once the veggies have roasted in the oven, yes. You will need to make sure to use an immmersion blender to blend it first before placing it in the crockpot.
I just made this and it was delicious! So simple to make and the flavor is amazing! I added green peppers to my roasted vegetables and replaced the brown sugar with maple syrup! I give it a 10!
That's awesome! I am so glad you liked it. It is really one of the best recipes for homemade sauce out there.
Can I use frozen tomatoes with this recipe??
Yes you can.
Can you give me an approximate amount of tomatoes in cups? I’ve frozen some of my tomatoes in order to get enough for a full recipe and they’re cut in pieces. I have San marzano tomatoes.
Twelve to fourteen medium-to-large fresh garden tomatoes yield approximately 5 1/2 to 7 1/2 cups of chopped or diced tomatoes. This roughly translates to 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pounds of fresh produce
How many quarts does this recipe make
This should be right at 1 quart of tomatoes. A typical quart of tomato sauce requires about 5 to 6 pounds of raw tomatoes.
Love this recipe for homemade spaghetti sauce! We freeze our tomatoes from the garden and it works well even with frozen tomatoes. Thanks!
Yes that is what I do too! It is so delicious and so easy to make.
I don’t normally do reviews like this, but OMG!, this recipe was so delicious! I followed it by the recipe except for the brown sugar(I didn’t have any) and used regular sugar. Also, I used fresh garden tomatoes. I told my husband we are not buying spaghetti sauce again, except in a pinch. Trust me, it’s that good!!
Thanks Meredith! We feel the same way. I only make it from scratch anymore.
Can I can this sauce? I am looking for sauce that I can can.
Yes you can absolutely can this sauce. Just make sure that if you jar it up in pint jars, use 1/2 tsp canning salt and 1/8 tsp of citric acid. For quart jars, use 1 tsp canning salt, and 1/4 tsp of citric acid. Water bath for 3 hours, or pressure can for 30 minutes.
Can you water bath can this
Yes you can. Do it for 30 minutes.