Ever wondered how to make marinara sauce? It’s so easy! Follow this recipe for a Roasted Tomato Basil Homemade Marinara Sauce!
For this Roasted Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce recipe, you’ll only need a few ingredients with no added sugar!
Make Your Own Marinara!
It’s almost August and tomatoes are about to be as ripe as they can be. They deserve to be made into a delicious homemade marinara sauce. That’s where this recipe comes into play! In less than 1 hour you can have a healthy, no-sugar-added marinara sauce that’s ready to eat!
All you need are a few key ingredients and you’re on your way to heaven in a jar!
- tomatoes
- olive oil
- garlic cloves
- salt
- pepper
- basil
- apple cider vinegar
It’s pretty simple to make your own marinara sauce from scratch. Before we get started, you’re going to need one important piece of kitchen equipment: a high-speed food processor or high-speed blender. Alright, let’s go!
How to Make Marinara Sauce in 4 Steps
Step 1: Oil & Roast
Drizzle your fresh tomatoes with a generous amount of olive oil and season with salt. Then, roast them on a baking sheet at 400ºF for around 30 minutes before you add the garlic cloves. Bake for another 20-30 minutes or until tomatoes reduce in size and begin to brown.
What kind of tomatoes should you use?
For this recipe, you can use any kind of tomato your heart desires! We definitely recommend using a larger tomato because it is less work to peel 8 bigger tomatoes than 30 cherry tomatoes.
Step 2: Peel
Let tomatoes cool ever so slightly so you can peel the skins right off without burning your hands. The skin should come right off of the meat. Discard the skin.
Step 3: Blend
Place everything from the baking sheet into a high-speed food processor or blender (like a Vitamix) and blend until smooth. If you’d like your basil a little chunkier (like we do), you can puree the tomatoes and garlic first and then pulse in the fresh basil.
Optional sweetener: This recipe calls for no added sugar, but adding a little bit of maple syrup (a few teaspoons) will really bring out all of the amazing flavors of the tomatoes. The option is yours!
Step 4: Jar
We suggest serving this marinara sauce immediately, but you can also transfer into a mason jar or glass container for later!
Storage
This sauce will stay good in the fridge for around 4 days. Remember, there aren’t any additives/preservatives and this recipe is 100% fresh. That’s why the shelf life isn’t super long.
Serving Suggestions
- Easy Pumpkin Marinara with Zoodles
- Healthy Chicken Parmesan Quinoa Bake
- Easy Grilled Sweet Potato Pizza
- 30-Minute Sausage Pizza Pasta
- Zoodle Pasta with Mushroom and Onion Marinara and Bacon
- Sweet Potato Pizza Bites
- Naked Spinach Quinoa Lasagna Casserole
How-To Video
More Homemade Sauce Recipes
Roasted Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce
Ever wondered how to make your own marinara sauce? It’s so easy! For this Homemade Roasted Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce recipe you’ll only need a few ingredients…and no added sugar added! Make this healthy marinara sauce with fresh tomatoes today!
Ingredients
- 8 medium tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 8–10 garlic cloves
- salt, to taste
- pepper, to taste
- 20 leaves fresh basil
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400ºF and lightly spray a baking sheet or casserole dish with nonstick cooking spray.
- Prep tomatoes by washing, patting dry, and cutting in half. Then, place on baking sheet face up and drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
- Roast at 400ºF for about 30 minutes. Then, add cloves of garlic to the pan and place back in the oven for 20-30 more minutes or until the tomatoes begin to brown. Be careful that the garlic doesn’t burn.
- Let tomatoes sit for around 5 minutes and then peel the skin off of them and discard.
- Place roasted tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, and apple cider vinegar into a high-speed food processor or blender (like a Vitamix) and process until smooth.
- Once smooth, do a taste test and add more salt and pepper to taste.
- Store in a mason jar or airtight container in the fridge for up to 3-4 days OR serve immediately.
Tips & Notes
- We kept the basil in bigger chunks because it’s more flavorful that way, but option to puree everything.
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 3/4 cup Calories: 182 Sugar: 0 Fat: 14 Carbohydrates: 10 Fiber: 0 Protein: 1Keywords: marinara sauce
I made this last summer and froze it in Mason jars; just used the last of it and will be making more this weekend. It’s a great recipe, super easy and super yummy!
★★★★★
I need to make sure to do that this year with all my crazy tomatoes!
Delicious! My girlfriend used this recipe and loved it. Great fresh ingredients. With all the tomatoes coming in at the same time, this is a great way to have an easy, fabulous recipe.
★★★★★
Still no freezing update?
We’ve had great success with making batches during tomato season and freezing in zip-locks for use throughout the winter. Cool first, then portion and bag.
Yay! We’d love it if you could give us a star rating for this recipe.
This was a good sauce. The hardest part of the recipe was skinning the tomatoes. They were hard to skin. Is there an easier way to remove the skins.
★★★★
Since you’re going to puree it, don’t skin rhem. It tastes done without skinning.
Made this tonight super easy receipe with great tastes I added a roasted red pepper to mine and it was so good
SOOOO YUMMY!
I have never tried to do my own sauce. We are buying the crashed tomatoes in a jar, add some oregano and garlic. I will try this marinara this weekend!
I was also wondering about freezing. This would be great to make during the summer, when you can get fresh tomatoes.
Curious about canning/freezing also! looks like a delicious recipe!
Do you have to peel them?
Wouldn’t it add more health benefit to leave the peel on?
You don’t HAVE to peel them, but the skin is a lot tougher than the rest of the tomatoes!
This looks so amazing. I really must start making homemade marinara sauce. It looks easy enough to make and I love feeding my family without all those nasty additives we get in store-bought sauces.
Yas! Your fam would love this <3
I love this recipe and your food photography is amazing – as always.
I’ve never understood sugar is in so many sauces, particular marinara. It seems such an odd choice and personally, I’ve found that it makes the flavor worse, not better.
Thank you Vince! I agree with you, this marinara is so simple and delicious without sugar!
1000% here for this!! Good gracious you WIN with this marinara sauce!!
It looks simple and healthy. Thanks for the recipe!
Canning or freezing would love to know also. THANKS
This looks so simple and delish. Could this be turned into a canning recipe to extend the life?
We are working on it!
This actually looks amazing, and really simple to make. I’m also wondering about extending the “shelf life”, so if that freezing tactic works out, I definitely want to know. 🙂
I second the freezing question. I’m assuming it will freeze just fine.
My basil plant is gigantic right now…definitely will be using it for this recipe! Do you think this would free well if I wanted to extend the shelf life?
Hi!!!! We haven’t tried freezing yet, but plan to soon. We will report back when we do!
I actually just roasted and froze tomatoes this morning. I think if you freeze just the tomatoes and then puree it into sauce when you’re ready it would taste fine and be fresh. Thoughts?
Yes! That would totally work!
This looks amazing! Any freezer notes for this recipe?
http://Www.themilestraveled.com
It looks delicious! Can’t wait to try to make it and put it on some pasta as a pre-long run carb loading meal! Do you use a specific kind of tomato for the best flavor? (Like in salsa, I find plum tomatoes work best for me, so I was wondering if you had a favorite with this one.)
We used Bushel Boy tomatoes! Do you have that near you?