Rich and delicious marinara sauce made with fresh tomatoes. Useful in casseroles like pasta, lasagna, and other dishes. My preferred method of consumption is to pour it over raw zucchini “pasta” for an exceptionally pleasant and nutritious dinner! An excellent recipe to use up garden tomatoes that are overripe. It freezes nicely, so double the quantity and freeze half of it.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 25 mins |
| Servings: | 6 |
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ onion, chopped
- 8 large tomatoes, peeled and cut into big chunks
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ cup red wine
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon dried marjoram
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon fennel seed
- ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar, or more to taste
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a stockpot over medium heat. Add onion; cook and stir until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, garlic, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tomatoes are soft, about 30 minutes.
- Stir in red wine, honey, basil, oregano, marjoram, salt, black pepper, fennel seed, and crushed red pepper; simmer and cook until herbs have flavored the sauce, about 30 minutes more.
- Add balsamic vinegar; still well to combine. Discard bay leaf.
Reviews
No more jarred sauce for me. It’s a lot of work, but this stuff is absolutely fantastic, especially with tomatoes from your own garden.
Didn’t like it at all. Salvaged it by adding 2 cans of Tom. Sauce and two jars of marinara sauce. Will add browned chop meat.
I make sauce each year from tomatoes out of my garden.This batch has nothing but big ripe San Maranzanos in it,alsowith fresh herbs from the garden (bay leaf,basil, thyme and oregano ) ,Intrigued by the use of balsamic vinegar and honey..I mill my tomatoes to remove seeds and skins, rather then just blend them together. I find It makes for a smoother more digestable sauce.I also allow the tomato puree to reduce down by 1/2 before adding the seasonings and wine.. Should make about 2 quarts or 4 pints.Will hot water bath them to seal..I’ll let you know how it turns out, but I do believe there will be no complaints!
This is delicious!! I’ve made it a couple times with our fresh, home grown tomatoes. I actually used a combination of tomatoes, including San Marzano as they’re excellent for soups and sauces.
Really good…deep, rich flavor.
This was delicious.
I may never buy bottled marinara sauce again! I followed the recipe exactly except for using fresh basil and subbing thyme for marjoram which I didn’t have. This one is a keeper!
I have so many tomatoes every year in my garden. I don’t know why I haven’t thought about making my own marinara sauces. This is so easy!
This was my first time making any kind of homemade sauce and this was amazing! Not too sweet as some others have had as a result – there is not enough honey to make it sweet. Just make sure your wine and balsamic are not on the sweet side and it won’t affect your sauce. Made as is except for marjoram, because no stores near me carry it. For the sake of time I simply cut tomatoes in half, cut the little green top off the middle, and chucked them in. Did not peel or seed. After the first round of cooking down I removed the bay leaf and puréed with my immersion blender. Put the bay leaf back in with all the spices and wine. The skin helped it be a thicker marinara, and as it cooled and sat in the fridge it thickened and the flavors deepened. This is such an easy recipe and way better than a jar sauce!
Loved it. Had about 20 lbs of several varieties (mostly yellow and purple) of end of season tomatoes. This recipe did a great job of making the blend of tomatoes tasty and really easy to make into sauce.
Great way to use up garden produce! I’ve made this many times with all different kinds of tomatoes, the riper the better. I do blanch them and remove the skin and seeds first, but chuck them into the pan in big chunks. I cook it longer, as it breaks the tomatoes down and provides a richer, thicker sauce. I use Mission Fig balsamic vinegar to finish (and omit the honey) and it provides a lovely umami flavor.
I’ve made this recipe twice in as many weeks with Early Girl tomatoes from my garden. The first time I followed it exactly as written. It was quite tasty, but also watery, and I didn’t care for the sweet note from the honey. So the second time I added 6oz tomato paste, skipped the honey, and used 4Tbsp chopped fresh basil from my herb planter instead of 2tsp dried basil. The paste thickened the sauce nicely, and added great flavor intensity. Darn tasty!
It’s a delicious recipe. But if I made it again, I’d eliminate some of the spices so it’s a little more tomato-forward. I’d probably eliminate the bay leaf, marjoram and fennel. It’s tasty, just not quite what I was shooting for.
This marinara sauce was so easy to make! Its delicous , followed the recipe exactly no changes ! Better than any jar marinara out there. Definitely will make again.
So very good. Don’t bother dicing tomatoes. I skin, cut in half, discard of most of the seeds and leave the halves. It all breaks down perfectly. I add one small can of paste and two small cans of water for a double batch.
No changes necessary. You have to follow the recipe as written. Then if you want to make changes, do at your own risk. The sauce is awsome!
Wow! Glad I found this recipe. This is a great tomato sauce. I was looking for a recipe for my garden tomatoes and came to this. My tomatoes were a bit watery so I did thicken it up with tomato paste. The vinegar at the end makes it extra delicious.
The sauce is delicious. I will use this recipe again.
First separate the juice & seeds from pulp, then strain out and discard the seeds. Add spices gradually and stop when you are happy. The basic recipe has too many seeds and spices for my taste.
Great way to use fresh garden tomatoes!
I made it as directed and my husband thought it should have a deeper, more umami flavor. That said, I added a bit more salt, some anchovy paste and two TBSP of brown sugar. Lovely.