how to make marinara sauce with fresh tomatoes

Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes is a delicious, homemade pasta sauce is bursting with ripe, juicy tomatoes, savory garlic, and fresh herbs…but the all-time part is that it's ready in thirty minutes!

30-Minute Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes, with text overlay.

Happy Fri, friends! I'thou dorsum today with another fabled recipe that'southward amazingly full of flavour for existence and so quick and easy to throw together. And conveniently enough, this 30-infinitesimal Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes can really be used every bit an ingredient in the 30-Minute Skillet Lasagna that I posted final calendar week!

In many ways, I am sad to see summer go. I've been spoiled all season long by fresh produce from my in-laws' garden, roadside stands, and farmers markets, from zucchini to yellow squash to cucumbers to peaches.

But my favorite fresh summer produce of all, hands-down, would exist tomatoes. Whether I'm enjoying caprese salads, thick-sliced tomato sandwiches, Marinated Tomatoes, or refreshing Gazpacho alllll summer long, I am addicted to tomatoes, I tell ya.

Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes served over pasta with basil garnish. At the tiptop of tomato season this year, there were times that nosotros had nearly more than tomatoes than nosotros could swallow, if you can imagine such a thing. So rather than merely enjoying them in their raw glory every bit we typically do, I began incorporating them as roasted tomato plant side dishes and started making my own marinara sauce. And TA-DAAAA...that would exist the recipe I'chiliad sharing today!

30-Minute Marinara

If you lot've been visiting Five Heart Home for whatever length of time -- or heck, even if this is your first visit (welcome!) and you lot've washed little more than read the tagline at the elevation of my site -- you already know that I'thousand all virtually quick and like shooting fish in a barrel recipes. In fact, I somehow (unintentionally) manage to work that phrase into but about every post...non because I'chiliad trying to, merely because information technology'southward truthful! If a recipe is not quick and easy, odds are that my three young children won't afford me the time (or the energy) to make it.

So this 30-Minute Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes is not your Italian grandmother'southward tedious-cooked-all-day, secret family recipe marinara.

Rather, every bit the proper name implies, it starts with fresh tomatoes and it's done in nearly half an hour.

Now I inquire you...how can you lot shell that?!

4-photo collage of steps to make Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes.

How to Get in

If y'all've made homemade marinara sauce before, you know that it typically involves blanching and peeling tomatoes and slowly simmering them for hours to develop a deep, rich, mellow flavor. Well, this is not that marinara sauce. For i thing, let's just be honest here...I am too lazy to blanch and peel tomatoes. And that's okay, because I don't at all mind footling bits of tomato skin in my sauce. In fact, I relish a marinara with a bit of texture, and this one has that.

My method for making this sauce is to cutting my tomatoes into chunks so squeeze them with my hands into a big pot to break them upwardly into little bits. This can be a messy process, so if you would rather give your tomato plant chunks a few pulses in the nutrient processor to achieve the same event, I would completely understand.

Ingredients

In addition to fresh tomatoes, this recipe features olive oil, garlic, fresh herbs, and a chip of seasoning/flavor-balancing thanks to salt, pepper, carbohydrate, and balsamic vinegar.

That'due south information technology!

Simple ingredients...simple, fresh-tasting, flavorful marinara.

Jar of finished sauce.

Fresh Herb Shortcut

I'm all about shortcuts, and if yous are, too, I've got one more than for ya.

When making this marinara, I toss a big bunch of fresh herbs directly into the sauce, stems and all. All that'due south required is to give them a quick rinse...no chopping required. During the simmering process, the leaves volition fall abroad and it'south piece of cake to option out the stems later on everything is finished cooking.

How to Puree

After the sauce has cooked downward for thirty minutes, I similar to give it a quick whirl with my immersion blender and so that it's slightly pureed but however has texture.

If you don't have an immersion blender, you could also pulse information technology a few times in the nutrient processor...just be sure to let it cool downwards a good bit earlier doing and so!

And if you prefer a mesomorphic marinara, merely get out your sauce equally-is.

Subbing Canned Tomatoes

If you get a hankering for this quick marinara afterward love apple season is over, feel free to merely utilize canned, preferably high-quality tomatoes (like San Marzano).

Expect for tomatoes canned in their own juices without the improver of garlic, herbs, or extra seasonings.

Canned whole tomatoes will demand to exist cut/mashed upwards as directed in this recipe; canned diced tomatoes may be used as-is.

And finally, if using canned tomatoes, drain and reserve the juice, only adding to the marinara sauce if more liquid is required.

Plate of pasta topped with Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes.

Whether you make information technology with fresh tomatoes or canned, in July or February, this quick and easy Marinara Sauce is perfect over pasta or incorporated into any recipe that calls for marinara, from Slow Cooker Meatball Subs to Zucchini Marinara to anything in between.

It's a great beginner recipe for someone who's never made homemade marinara sauce earlier, but it'southward and then delicious that you'll revisit information technology fourth dimension and time again.

Bask, y'all!

More Fresh Tomato Recipes

Cucumber Tomato Feta Salad
Blackness Bean, Corn, & Tomato Salad
Summer Couscous Salad
Tex-Mex Corn, Lycopersicon esculentum, & Avocado Salad

30-Minute Marinara Sauce with Fresh Tomatoes over plate of pasta.

▢ 4 pounds ripe tomatoes
▢ i tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
▢ 4 large cloves garlic, minced
▢ one bunch fresh herbs, such as basil, or a philharmonic of basil, parsley, oregano, and/or thyme
▢ 1 tablespoon sugar
▢ ½ teaspoon salt
▢ Freshly ground black pepper
▢ ½ teaspoon balsamic vinegar
▢ Crushed ruddy pepper flakes, to taste (optional)
▢ Additional fresh chopped herbs, to sense of taste (optional)

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going nighttime

Cutting tomatoes into chunks. Using your hands, squeeze them into bits over a large, deep bowl or pot, including juices. (Alternatively, you may pulse them a few times in a food processor.) Set up bated.
In a large pot set over low heat, sauté minced garlic in olive oil until softened and fragrant. Add tomatoes and juices to pot, place fresh herb agglomeration on top, raise heat to medium, and bring to a simmer. Reduce estrus to low, encompass pot, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
When sauce has thickened and reduced, remove herb stems. Stir in sugar, salt, pepper, and balsamic vinegar. Sense of taste and adjust seasonings. If desired, add crushed cerise pepper flakes and additional fresh chopped herbs. Use an immersion blender or food mill to slightly puree sauce. (Or you lot may permit sauce to absurd and pulse it in batches in a food processor. Do not over-process...a scrap of texture should remain.) Serve warm or allow to slightly cool and shop in a container or jar in the refrigerator for upward to a week.

If fresh tomatoes are out of flavor, y'all may substitute high-quality canned tomatoes (canned in their own juices without the addition of garlic, herbs, or extra seasonings, such as San Marzano). Canned whole tomatoes need to exist cutting/mashed upward as directed in this recipe; canned diced tomatoes may be used as-is. If using canned tomatoes, drain and reserve the juice, merely adding to the marinara sauce if more liquid is required.
The corporeality of sugar, salt, pepper, and balsamic required will depend on the sugariness and acidity of the tomatoes you use. Start with the directed amounts of seasonings and add together more than every bit needed. For this particular batch of marinara, I ended upwardly increasing the amounts to 1 ½ tablespoons sugar and ¾ teaspoon common salt.