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How do I turn fresh tomatoes into pasta sauce?
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this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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Start by sauteeing some onions in olive oil, with tomato paste if you have it. When they start to get translucent add some diced garlic and cook for a minute. You could also have some celery and carrots in the initial sauté with the onions.
At this point you can put in the tomatoes, and cook a bit then mash them up, with some water if they’re not that juicy. Some people like to peel the tomatoes… That means put them in a pan of boiling water after scoring them on a few sides, and then taking them out after a minute or two and removing the peels, then putting them into the sauce. I don’t do this. I just remove the peels after the sauce has been cooking for a while.
Add some salt. I find them my sauce tastes a lot better if I add a quarter cup or so of red wine such as Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon. If you don’t have that, some red wine vinegar helps to stoke the acidity. Sometimes I throw in some onion chunks, some mushrooms, and you should at some point probably add some herbs like garlic and basil.
Some recipes say to simmer for a really short time like 20 or 30 minutes. I prefer doing it for quite a while, like a few hours, which deepens the flavor and caramelizes the tomatoes for sweetness. One thing that I found I like is to cook it on the range in a Dutch oven for half an hour, and then put it in the oven at about 325 for a couple hours. That makes a really thick sauce. Just be sure if you do it on the range top to stir it often.
If you have a blow torch, use that on the tomato skins instead, then use a paper towel to rub the skin off. Not that it matters for a sauce recipe, but it doesn't cook the outer flesh like boiling does. Great for pico and other fresh tomato preparations.
Or use cherry tomatoes and the skins become less of a problem. To mass cut cherry tomatoes, put your tomatoes on a plate put another plate over them and run your knife through the seam.
Oh, a small pinch of red pepper when you're cooking down your aromatics is a great way to add more depth to your sauce. Especially useful if you don't have wine on hand.
blow torch!? Just blanch them and peel the skins lol for pico just leave the skins on
You can also just fuck it all up with an immersion blender, too.
My partner has a sensory issue with tomatoes, and anything that has a chunk of tomato big enough to feel has to be blended into oblivion.
Gotta say, I have started liking salsa more...
Cut your tomatoes in half, put flat side down in pan. The tomatoes will cook in their own juices and after like 5 minutes the skins basically fall off. You can pull them off with a fork or something and then mash em.
Finally, some sense.
This a great start and I’d just throw in, if you’re the parent of a small picky eater or just want to get more veggies in your life. I like to grate in all sorts of other veggies like broccoli, zucchini, spinach, carrots, just go nuts, because tomatoes have such a strong flavour your blander veggies go right in and if you grate it fine enough just dissolve so kids done see or taste them but all the good stuff still gets in.
Do not trust this though, if the kids are neurodivergent. If the picky eating is because of sensory issues, they might still notice, so be very careful with the amounts and types of vegetables. If they notice you are trying to trick them into eating something, that might damage their trust very deeply, and that causes all sorts of issues in long term. And they might refuse to eat the type of sauce again (or even all sauces you make), even if it does not have the veggies added.
That depends what you're cooking, I guess. I end up making lasagna or manicotti, and that could include any number of vegetables etc. If it will be served on plain noodles, adding veggies to the sauce itself sounds like a good idea.
Unless you follow the advice of cooking the sauce for a couple of hours, after which all that will be left of the veggies will be basically fiber.
To be fair, when cooking a sauce (or stew, soup etc.), some of the nutrients will enter the sauce (vs. cooking water that will later be thrown away), but preserving nutrients / vitamins etc. while cooking still means reducing heat / cooking time.
Please don't cook vegetables to oblivion and assume this will fulfill your kids nutritional needs. Not talking about you in particular, just making sure here.
Pro tip if you hate extra work and planning. Freeze the tomatoes fully. Then let them thaw a bit. Skins peel right off. This messes up the texture of the tomatoes, but is inconsequential for a sauce.
you forgot the garlic that needs to be put in just at the end
I throw things in at random throughout the process, really
That depends on what sort of garlic flavor you want.
The Alicin in garlic does break down with time and heat, but that allows other parts of the garlic flavor to come forward.
Well we already had garlic added twice:
There should already be plenty of the sweet garlic flavours, lets add a bit of garlic sharpness as well
/me likes garlic
Huh, I usually don't add tomato paste until the very end. Else it burns on the bottom of the pan
Burned tomato paste is delicious though. Burn it.
When using jarred sauce I usually first brown some tomato paste in olive oil, maybe with an anchovy or two. Then a half bottle of wine and let it reduce. Then the jarred sauce and let it all simmer together while the pasta cooks.
Why would it burn on the bottom of the pan? You sauté with the other stuff, then it gets throughly mixed in. The way I learned was it needs to be sautéed a bit. I guess adding it later would work about as well, idk.