I USED TO SPEND RAINY DAYS in harvest season writing, and reading, and streaming a bounty of BBC and other British television series such as “Broadchurch” and “Silk”–oh, what would I do without public TV from both sides of the Atlantic? All the while I’d set consecutive small batches of tomato sauce to bubbling on the stove…destined for the freezer. Even if it doesn’t rain much, or in years when my TV viewing leans to the Australian, the cooking process is the same. Keeping things really simple, my basic freezer red sauce goes like this:
fast red sauce for the freezer
ingredients:
- olive oil for sautéing
- 1 large head of garlic, whole cloves peeled
- 3 chopped quarts of plum tomatoes
- fresh basil, chiffonaded (as much or little as you like)
- generous handful of fresh parsley, chopped
- (salt and pepper to taste, if desired)
steps:
Sauté all the peeled whole cloves from one head of garlic slowly in olive oil till they are really soft and almost caramelized. I leave the cover on the pan, and use low heat so they don’t get crispy (later, the cloves will sort of melt into the sauce).
To the soft garlic, add a mixing bowl full of chopped whole paste tomatoes (above). By mixing bowl I mean 8-inch diameter, holding about 3 liquid quarts.
Yes, I leave on the skins, and leave in the seeds, terrible person that I am! Hey, more fiber and vitamins for me, right? (If you really hated the skins, you could use a food mill to strain them out of the cooked mixture, but I love chunky sauce.)
I do remove any dings or occasionally the cores if they are really substantial – just that greenish-brown spot where the stem attached, I mean, not the innards. But the small, very reliable and productive paste tomato I grow for sauce, the hybrid called ‘Juliet’ (below) or the newer variety ‘Verona,’ really don’t have much core to fuss over. Note: even cherry tomatoes make their own distinctive sauce, so if you have a late-season glut of them, why not?
Cover, and after things start to soften slightly, add chopped basil to taste. Cover again, and let the ingredients really get thoroughly soft–then remove the cover to let steam escape and the sauce thicken.
I chop some of my favorite parsley, the Italian-style giant flat-leaf type, and add it in after I remove the sauce from the heat, so the leaves just wilt but stay bright green.
The whole process for each small batch might take half an hour, prep to finish. When the sauce is cool, I ladle it into straight-sided canning jars, leaving some headspace for expansion, and freeze. (I say straight-sided because jars with “shoulders” can crack more easily when liquidy ingredients push up while freezing to solid. Wide-mouth straight-sided are best of all.)
One more tip: Vary the size of jars you stash with sauce. Sometimes you just need enough for one serving, like a half-pint jelly jar, or even half that, perhaps to use as the “liquid” in some sautéed vegetables or to enrich another sauce. Other times, company’s coming: Make sure there are some quarts on hand.
or: try herbed-roasted tomatoes to freeze
or: try herbed-roasted tomatoes to freezeTIP: I FREEZE WHOLE TOMATOES in freezer bags, to use instead of canned whole tomatoes in soups and stews and sauces all year. And lately I also follow the inspiration of my friend Alana Chernila, a cookbook author and neighbor, and freeze herbed roasted tomatoes, too. As a future sauce or soup, they are unrivaled. Here’s the “recipe.”
I was curious to see what you put in your sauce, and found that mine is virtually identical. I like chunky sauce, my husband doesn’t, and neither of us like the skins. So I cut the stem area out of the tomatoes first, then dunk them into a hot (near boiling) water bath, then in ice water. That loosen the skins, making them slip right off. I then add the other ingredients and use a hand blender to create the smooth sauce my husband likes.
I’m interested to try your herb-roasted tomatoes. They look good!
Hi Margaret, I use my tomatoes ( with all of my kitchen herbs) the same way you do, and dine on the easy result all winter long. Only one difference–when my daughter was a toddler, I called your ” Tomato Junk” recipe, ” Spa-vegetable” sauce. It was a sneaky way to get her to eat all the things to which she would otherwise have turned her up her nose. Now, it’s my Lazy Cooks way to get my quota in as well.
Thanks for your wonderful column.
Great idea for preserving tomatoes!
I also make fresh tomato soup this way: leave on the skins, leave in the seeds! Add your desired herbs & seasonings. After the tomatoes are very soft I just mash them with a potato masher, add some chicken broth or water if needed (to extend the amount).
Surprisingly enough my entire family loves it! Sometimes I use my yellow tomatoes for an eye-popping “change of pace” soup. My experiments? They’ve all come out delicious.
Thanks for your recipe, Margaret!
Just curious why you freeze in jars. It is so hard on canning jars to freeze in them and ziplock bags that are not overfilled, but rather filled to lay flat, make filling the freezer much more space efficient. You must have a good reason. I let my sauce cool before filling the bags to avoid extra plastic leaching issues.
Wish I had some tomatoes and cucumbers .
This year has been terrible gardening.
I have been using your recipe for several years now, and thank you for turning me onto Juliets!! Everyone I’ve shared Juliet seedlings with always ask for more or have started ordering their own seeds. What an easy way to make tomato sauce. I’ve also made tomato sauce by first roasting them slightly and then putting them into the Vitamix to totally puree seeds and skins. Makes a smooth sauce, in addition to some of the chunky. Juliet gives me pounds and pounds of tomatoes every year well into the fall all from one bush. I sent for Verona seeds this year and was greatly disappointed. It is supposed to be an ‘improved’ Juliet, but nothing can improve on her. Thanks again for this easy recipe. Beats the heck out of the big hot canning pots if you have the freezer space.
Yum, today’s task. I will roast my grape tomatoes with herbs and garlic then blend and put into a silicone freezer ice cube tray. Gives me just enough for flat bread or soup base addition.
I cook my tomatoes with skin and all until they are soft, pulverize them until they are all just ‘sauce’. Divide into pots and in the freezer they go.
Thanks for this recipe! I’ll try it next time, instead of water bath canning as usual. I always cook the skins and seeds of my organically grown tomatoes, I don’t want to waste the vitamins and nutrients. After chopping the tomatoes into chunks, I purée them in my food processor before cooking. After this treatment the seeds and skins disappear into the sauce.