A versatile summertime staple, this quick and easy sauce is a delicious way to use an abundance of cherry or grape tomatoes. It will even make the most of off-season cherry tomatoes.
This is the sort of easy summer cooking I love: basic, fresh ingredients coming together as something altogether pleasing in a few short minutes.
Although perfect over pasta–and I have included a simple, “every-night” recipe along with the sauce instructions below–this sauce is incredibly versatile.
You can use your imagination to create quick, flavorful meals based on what you enjoy. I’ve also included a few ways that we enjoy the recipe.
I particularly enjoy the rustic sauce served over roasted or grilled eggplant, zucchini, and mushrooms. In addition to traditional pasta, it pairs beautifully with zucchini noodles.
Or pick a grain of preference, be it quinoa or rice, and create your own alternative to the traditional pasta dinner. After cooking the grain, add the grilled or roasted veggies (even leftovers work well), stir in some of the chunky sauce, and add any other flavor boosters that may appeal. Mozzarella or feta cheese and Kalamata olives pair particularly well.
Speedy Cherry Tomato Sauce is also delicious as the sauce on this recipe for Deconstructed Eggplant Parmesan. Or go appetizer-style and use it as a condiment for bite-size (and addicting!) Crispy Baked Eggplant.
Versatile as it is, Speedy Cherry Tomato Sauce serves as an excellent springboard for Tuna in Rustic Tomato Sauce. It’s an easy, one-pan meal that can be modified with another variety of fish, or even shrimp or chopped chicken. Serve with crusty bread or break up the tuna and stir everything into hot cooked pasta.
Recipe tweaks I’ve made since first posting this recipe:
- Make it meaty. For variety, I occasionally start by first sautéing 12 ounces of sausage (turkey or pork), removing the cooked and crumbled sausage to a plate and then proceeding with the sauce recipe.
- When I don’t have fresh basil, I add ½ teaspoon of dried oregano or Italian seasoning along with the salt and pepper.
- For a super easy protein addition, I sometimes stir in a 5-ounce can of drained tuna at the end of the cooking time. I break up the tuna with a fork but keep it rather chunky.
- I’ve also added 2 thinly sliced shallots to the oil, cooking to soften, before adding the garlic. (More shallots would be good!) Then I toss in 12 ounces of cooked pasta, sprinkling with grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano to taste. A little reserved pasta water is nice to have on hand to loosen the pasta after it has been sitting a while.
- One more idea: A reader emailed me recently to say that she makes this sauce on repeat. When she has an abundance of zucchini from her garden she chops it and sautés it in olive oil until golden. (Higher heat and less stirring help to achieve this more quickly.) Then she removes the cooked zucchini to a plate, continues with the Speedy Cherry Tomato Sauce recipe, and stirs in the zucchini at the end. A sprinkle of crumbled feta would be lovely as well.
This rustic sauce is an ideal way to use an abundance of seasonal cherry or grape tomatoes. It will also make the most of grocery store cherry tomatoes, which are available year round.
After briefly sautéing the garlic, the tomatoes are added.
The flavorful sauce needs only the simplest of seasonings.
Pressing on the tomatoes with a fork encourages them to break down and turn into sauce more quickly.
Basil adds fresh flavor and color, but if you don’t have any, you could use a half teaspoon of dried Italian seasoning or oregano.
This 2013 photo shows a batch of the sauce made with grape tomatoes, which have a higher ratio of skin to pulp (meaning less moisture). The sauce will look slightly different depending on variety of tomato used and precise simmer time–but will always taste delicious!
* I’ve also made this sauce with grape tomatoes and it’s excellent. They tend to have less moisture than cherry tomatoes, so the finished sauce will be slightly chunkier. ** Choose the amount of pasta based on whether you like your pasta extra saucy or not. I like a high ratio of sauce to pasta so use the lesser amount of pasta. 
Recipe first posted August 2013.
Wow, love the simplicity. I like to add a bit of red (or white) wine with some onion was well. That said, every time I pass the cherry tomatoes at market I think of this type red sauce!
So glad you like, Jim, and the addition of onion and wine sounds wonderful!
Great easy recipe. Am going to make it tonight to go with skinned chicken thighs, fresh green string beans, tiny potatoes & cucumber salad. Have loads of cherry tomatoes from my garden & must use them up, plus have lots of fresh basil & other herbs from my garden. Think I’ll make several batches & freeze some. Thank you so much for such a great rustic tomato sauce.
So happy you enjoyed the sauce, Nancy, and your plans for tonight’s dinner sound fantastic. Enjoy every bite!
This is a fantastic recipe that I used last year as well. My husband doesn’t like chunks of tomatoes so I throw it in the blender after cooking it. I sometimes add a small can of tomato paste to give it a richer color and texture. However, it is the perfect sauce either way!
Thank you very much for your feedback, Lynn. I’m thrilled this has been a recipe to return to and love your solution to offer appeal to your husband!
I’m going to make this sauce now with the cherry tomatoes that were picked yesterday…it’s going to be delicious.
Love that and I think it will be, Charlotte. Enjoy!
We followed your recipe as our base then added all things yummy from the garden too and it was Perfect! and very easy
This would be a great base to add more veggies to, Shawna. Thank you for your comment and so glad you enjoyed!
Great recipe and truly easy. I don’t like the texture of tomato peels. so when it was done, I pureed in blender, Excellant!
Fresh garden cherry tomatoes – no need to puree.
Store bought – don’t know where they are from or how old they are. If on sale – old for sure.
Thanks,
Jane
Hi Jane, I’m delighted this recipe was well liked and appreciate the mention of pureeing. It’s a great option for those who prefer a smoother texture.
It was coming into Spring, and I’d been having a craving for that wonderful taste of cherry tomatoes sautéed in butter till they burst. I had some cheese tortellini I thought would be delicious slathered in the sauce, so off I went to search for a quick, easy recipe that would fit the bill. I ended up here and could not have been happier. This recipe is exactly what I was looking for, and it did not disappoint! Quick, easy, and delightful in its taste … I’ve made it three times in the last two weeks!! Thank you for sharing this recipe, as it’s become my favorite, hands down, whenever I get a craving for that exquisite taste of sautéed cherry tomatoes.
Lynda, Your comment made my day! I’m delighted you’ve made this on repeat and appreciate all the thouhtful details. You’ve also made me hungry to serve the sauce with tortellini. Such a good combination!
Can you freeze this?
You can, Justin!
Can this sauce be frozen? What is the best method for freezing? Would you alter the recipe for freezing?
Hi Linda, I’ve had success freezing a variety of tomato sauces with no modification to the recipe. I used to freeze the sauce in Tupperware-type freezer containers, but more recently I’ve begun using canning jars, leaving a little head space at the top to allow for expansion. Feel free to use whichever container you prefer. Also, I like to cool the sauce completely in the uncovered freezer containers in the refrigerator. Then I add the lid when the sauce is cold and before I transfer to the freezer. That way, you won’t get ice on the lids from condensation.
I haven’t used this recipe yet but I’m going to use it tonight. It smells Wonderful! And it tastes it so good too!
I’m so glad it’s smelling and tasting good, Beverly. Enjoy dinner, however, you use it!
Can I can this and if so how long will it last?
Hi Cyndi, Because the pH for tomatoes is borderline in terms of water bath canning (unless you add an acid like lemon juice), I recommend freezing it or high pressure canning.
yum! This was easy and delicious. thanks!
Fabulous news, Debra! Thanks for your comment!
Just read all the comments. Can’t wait to make several batches with a ton of cherry tomatoes from a neighor’s bounty. I was wondering how putting it through a strainer would work after cooking to get rid of some of the skins? We don’t want too many skins, but don’t mind some.
We also plan to freeze a bunch, so I was happy to hear it freezes well, even with the skins which concerned me a bit!
P.s. I do wish it printed better on one page. (I find this alot with recipes!) I tried to put it to 70%, and it’s so it’s hard to read, yet I have a ton of wasted white space on the page, esp on the right side.
I’m sorry for any aggravation. I provide the print option for convenience and try to balance the readability with other reader requests – all while working within certain templates. To get around this here and on other sites where you have a similar issue, you could cut and paste the recipe text onto a Word document or email. Oftentimes, this simple action will reformat the type into something that’s more concise. Or you could simply delete the extra spaces once pasted. Hopefully, this will help somewhat.
Hi Michelle, How wonderful that a neighbor shared! I’m glad you found this recipe (coincidently I made two batches this morning), and I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. The skins do soften nicely and provide a good bit of the structure to the sauce. You could try straining, although I’ve blended a similar recipe with great results.
This was OUTSTANDING. My wife and I both agreed that this sauce would rival that of a high end authentic Italian restaurant or grandmas Italian kitchen. Thank you for sharing.
Yay! Thank you for the high praise, Dave. I’m truly delighted you and your wife enjoyed.
Can you freeze this sauce
I don’t tend to freeze this sauce, Hazel, but I have on occasion and it worked well.
Once again fresh and simple ingredients win the day. I made some pappardelle to use and cooked it in the sauce. I loved it!
Pappardelle would be the perfect vehicle for this easy sauce, Michael. I’m so glad you enjoyed!
I’ve been using your recipe for 3 years now. I look forward to making this sauce every year when the tomatoes come in from the garden. Thanks for putting this out! I would like to note that some tomatoes are naturally sweet enough where you don’t need to add any sugar at all. Not adding the sugar to the recipe also allows you to eliminate 1/2 the amount of salt needed. It’s a bit healthier this way, and honestly lets the flavors of the tomatoes really shine!
Michael, I love that you’ve returned to this recipe year after year! The small bit of sugar may certainly be omitted, and I appreciate your taking a moment to mention. I hope you enjoy many batches this season!
Thanks for the recipe. Often at grocer I see these colorful large cherry tomatoes and wonder if I could simply make marina with them along with garlic (onions?) and other in your recipe. I often have to add a bit more sugar, also I heard lemon juice (little) is good for balancing? Going to try soon and since have larger group, may supplement with can crushed tomatoes…(oh, and perhaps some red wine!)…
Hi Jim, Coincidently, I made a half batch of this last night with tomatoes that needed to be used and served alongside zucchini fritters. It was a good combination! Store-bought tomatoes, especially in the off-season, can be less sweet than height-of-the-season tomatoes, so you may like an extra pinch or two of sugar with them. You can add lemon juice, although the tart addition may make you feel like you want a touch more sugar, too. A light squeeze would be nice, as would a drizzle of balsamic vinegar – or red wine as you say. Onions are certainly fair game, too. I’d cook them down a bit before adding the garlic. I tend to keep this sauce easy, and it never disappoints. Hope you enjoy as well!
Can this be processed???
Hi Patrice, The pH would be borderline low for the hot water bath method, so I would recommend high pressure canning to be safe. The sauce does freeze well, too.
Could you pressure can this also? I am overloaded with cherry tomato and not real fond of pickled tomato
Hi Lauri, I haven’t canned this myself, but I would recommend high pressure canning for tomatoes, as their pH is low and an acid like lemon juice usually needs to be added with the hot water bath method. Also, this sauce does freeze well if you have the freezer space!