30-minute fresh tomato marinara

Delicious restaurant-quality marinara sauce made from fresh tomatoes, and done in 30 minutes. Made with just 4 ingredients (plus salt).

Cuisine gluten-free, paleo, vegan, vegetarian

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 30 minutes minutes

Servings 4 cups

Calories 80kcal

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 5 cloves garlic minced
  • 4.5 lb fresh tomatoes stem pieces removed (72 oz./2040 g.) (any variety; see notes)
  • 1 large sprig fresh basil
  • 3/4 tsp salt scant (or to taste)

Instructions

  • Roughly chop the tomatoes and add them to a food processor. (Don't worry about peeling or seeding them). Pulse the food processor until the tomatoes are broken down into a salsa-like texture (very small chunks). If you want your sauce to be completely smooth, rather than a bit chunky, see my tips in the recipe notes.

  • In the widest pan you have (avoid using a saucepan; see notes), warm the olive oil over medium heat.

  • Add the garlic and cook for about 60 seconds, just until it becomes fragrant and sizzles a little bit.

  • Add the chopped tomato mixture and a generous pinch of salt; stir. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, then reduce to a steady simmer. Do not cover.

  • Take a sharp knife to score the stem of the basil sprig in a few places, without cutting all the way through. Place the basil sprig on top of the sauce and press it down.

  • Continue cooking the sauce uncovered, stirring occasionally, for about 20 more minutes, or until thickened to your desired texture. You may notice that the marinara sauce looks pink at first, then eventually turns a brighter reddish orange as the tomatoes cook. Some of the oil will start to separate to the top. Cooking time will vary depending on the variety of tomatoes used, and will be longer if you don't use a shallow, wide pan.

  • Season the sauce to taste with additional salt. Leftovers, once cooled, can be stored in the refrigerator in a glass container for up to a week.

Notes

You can use any variety of tomatoes that you like, as long as they're red. Smaller tomatoes will generally result in a sweeter sauce. A regular width pan will result in a longer cooking time, because there is not as much surface area for the excess liquid to evaporate. Using a saucepan with tall edges will cause steam to be trapped longer around the surface of the sauce and thus also increase the cooking time. In both cases, the sauce will still taste great but will not have quite as pronounced of a fresh tomato flavor as they continue to cook. For a completely smooth marinara sauce, I recommend either: (a) peeling the tomatoes and then pureeing the food processor mixture thoroughly, or (b) using a high-powered blender to finely pulverize and puree the skins and flesh of the tomatoes; this may require stopping a few times to scrape down the sides. Sorry, I don't know whether this recipe is safe for canning!

Nutrition

Serving: 1half cup | Calories: 80kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 3g | Sodium: 225mg | Potassium: 606mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 7g | Vitamin A: 2100IU | Vitamin C: 47mg | Calcium: 20mg | Iron: 0.7mg

Comments

  1. Dan says

    This turned out great, though I did end up cooking it for around an hour instead of 20 minutes, at a high simmer/low boil. I mostly used beefsteak type garden tomatoes and blended it all up in a vitamix. 20 minutes seems way too low, but maybe it works if you’re using very meaty tomatoes. I served it with some sauteed summer squash and sliced mushrooms and crumbled some fried beyond meat breakfast patties over the pasta, and topped it all with nutritional yeast. Also I mixed in plenty of black pepper and included a bay leaf.

    I would definitely make this again, but the timing seems off.

    Reply

    • Shannon @ Yup, it's Vegan says

      The water content and the width of the pan (the wider the pan, the larger the surface area = shorter cooking time) will both factor in! Glad to hear that you enjoyed the sauce!

  2. Cassie says

    I just made this sauce last night with tomatoes from my garden to go with spaghetti squash from my garden. The timing was perfect because I put the squash in the oven and made the sauce while to was baking. It was so simple and delicious, why haven’t I done this before?? Thanks for the thoughtful recipe and post. Will make many times in the future 🙂

    Hazel says
  3. Such a great idea to use a shallow pan! You have so many delicious looking recipes that I’ve tagged so many of them to make. I found your site through a vegan Facebook page and people were raving about your rice paper bacon. Your visual recipe index is pretty awesome too!

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By Shannon,Yup, it's Vegan

I’m Shannon, a vegan cooking enthusiast with the goal in mind of making delicious recipes to please any palate. Whether you’re a vegan, a flexitarian, trying to prepare for a vegan guest, or just want some good, wallet-friendly recipes, I hope you’ll find some inspiration here! On this blog, you’ll see food that’s 100% free of animal products: no meat, fish, eggs, dairy, or honey.

I like to use whole grains and avoid refined sugars and refined oils, but I’m certainly flexible about this and my recipes reflect that. Healthy or not, this site won’t feature store-bought vegan alternatives like margarine or fake cheese because I don’t personally like them or cook with them. I am a vegetable lover to the core and many of my recipes highlight the seasonal produce that we enjoy in the Mid-Atlantic United States.

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Recipes and writing are my original work, and fall under copyright, unless otherwise stated. Everyone is welcome to adapt my recipes with credit, or use a picture from my site if it is accompanied by a link back to the post where you found it. I’d prefer if you don’t copy/paste the entire recipe instructions, but copying over the ingredients list is totally fine. If you’re not sure about something, just ask me. I don’t bite!

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Why vegan:

I started exploring vegan food in 2011 or so, to see if I would feel better on a plant-based diet. I have found that eating this way makes me feel better than ever before, and over time I swapped out pretty much my entire Standard American Diet for a whole foods-based, vegan one. (I’ve known for years that I am severely lactose intolerant, so I was already somewhat of an expert at avoiding dairy.) Now that I’m healthy and feel amazing, I find myself wanting other people to try out a partially or completely plant-based diet, too – and I’ve found that food is the best form of persuasion.

It’s easy to become reliant on butter or bacon to make your meals taste good. But we have an amazing variety of foods on our earth that don’t need meat or dairy to be delicious, and everyone should have some of those recipes up their sleeve!

Through this blog, I want to show that a regular person – who never had culinary training, and simply stumbled upon this way of life one day – can eat a delicious plant-based diet and make food that won’t make you wonder if it’s vegan or not – it will just taste amazing. Yup, it’s vegan and yup, you can do it! To ensure that I’m making good on my promise, most – if not all – of my recipes are fed to omnivores during their test runs!

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