What to do with your Roma tomatoes – make this Fresh Roma Tomato Pasta Sauce! Take advantage of the sales of plum tomatoes like we do so you don’t have to rely on a canned or jarred sauce. This tomato sauce is my version of my mother’s fresh pasta sauce that I ate growing up. She used Roma tomatoes, also known as plum tomatoes, for this sauce because it has fewer seeds and less liquid compared to other tomato varieties. It’s a quick-cooking sauce because it’s cooked on high heat, is not simmering for hours, and the plum tomatoes have the skins on.
What to serve with this sauce
Fresh Roma Tomato Pasta Sauce makes a great meal to serve when my husband and I want to feel like we’re eating “grown-up food” after eating lots of “kid food” all week, and my son will eat it, too. Mixing it with almost any type of pasta will work, but we do like it with long noodles like spaghetti or fettuccine.
This sauce tastes wonderful with shrimp. My husband enjoyed it with sliced Italian sausage and angel hair pasta because it complements the light sauce. Vegan Italian sausage also tasted pretty good. Serve it with a side salad and you have a healthy balanced meal.
If you’re not feeling like eating a bunch of carbs, serve this with cooked spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles instead.
You could also skip the butter and add a little milk or heavy cream, blend it with an emersion blender, and create a small batch of tomato soup to enjoy with some cheese toast or crackers.
Skin on or off?
Tomato skin has many of the antioxidants and lycopene found in the flesh, if not more. On the flip side, it will probably have the highest concentration of pesticides if you are using non-organic tomatoes. The skin might also be hard for some people to digest.
If the idea of keeping the skin on the tomatoes doesn’t sit right with you, I have instructions on how to peel the skins in the recipe. I often don’t do this step to save time, but it is nice to have this sauce without the texture of the skin.
Do you plan to serve this sauce to people who grew up pinching pennies and stretching their dollars to feed lots of mouths? These folks will be a little sad inside if you peeled the skin off because it is a “waste of good food.” Just sayin’.
Here are some other dinner recipes that you might enjoy!
Fresh Roma Tomato Pasta Sauce
Equipment
- 1 5-quart pot for pasta (optional for sauce)
- 1 paring knife or other small knife (optional)
- 1 chef's knife
- 1 large cutting board
- 1 Large bowl
- 1 5 Quart pan or 11" chicken fryer
- measuring cups and spoons
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Roma tomatoes (plum tomatoes)
- water for boiling water for pasta (optional for sauce)
- 1 garlic bulb peeled and sliced
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp dried Italian seasoning
- ½ tsp Kosher salt
- ¼ tsp ground black pepper
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter or ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
- Skip to Step 4 if keeping the skin on the tomatoes. Optional: Fill pot with water and heat on high heat. Wash the tomatoes and score the bottoms making an x-shape with a small knife. Add the scored tomatoes to pot once water is boiling and turn down heat to medium high heat.
- Optional: Make an ice bath while tomatoes are in the pot. Boil tomatoes for about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove tomatoes from heat and place in the ice bath. (Optional: save the ice bath water for the pot to boil your pasta noodles.)
- Optional: Peel the skin off the tomatoes. The skin will come off easily.
- Cut the tomatoes into ½ inch x ½ inch pieces. Place in a large bowl and set aside.
- Heat a 5-quart large fryer pan or 11” saucepan on medium heat.
- Once the pan is heated, add olive oil and heat for 30 seconds.
- Add the garlic slices to pan and sauté for 1 minute. Add Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and tomatoes and stir to combine.
- Turn the heat up to high and cook for 10 minutes on high, stirring occasionally. The sauce will thicken as it boils.
- Turn the heat down to low. Add ¼ cup unsalted butter or olive oil to sauce. (Optional: If serving with shrimp, add 1 pound of peeled and deveined shrimp and cook for 2 to 3 minutes in sauce.)
- Add your favorite cooked pasta (1 lb when uncooked/dry) to the sauce to finish cooking in the sauce. If not using shrimp, serve with cooked and sliced Italian sausage links.
