Freezer marinara/tomato sauce?

[jeanine123]

Yes, I'm planning ahead a bit but I was wondering if anyone had a recipe for a marinara sauce that freezes well?

[EFmom]

You could use any recipe from any cookbook for marinara and it would freeze just fine.

[jeanine123]

Cool, thanks. I wasn't sure if it would end up all runny, like the chopped tomatoes I tried freezing last year.

[PrairieTide]

I'm not nearly the cook that some of the mamas on this board are, but I do have one piece of advice. It might be the kind of tomatoes you used last year that made your sauce runny. You might try Roma tomatoes this year. Romas are known for being more "solid"/less liquidy and are often used for making sauces.

Another option would be to chop up your tomatoes and then to let them "drain" a bit by placing them in a strainer over a bowl.

If you have a garden, I don't think it would be too late to add a roma tomato plant to your garden. You'd probably have to buy a start at the nursery. Most romas (and other sauce-type tomatoes) will produce a bunch of tomatoes all at once. (There is a name for this type of tomato plant that I can't remember. Determinate/indeterminate???) It is different from the typical garden tomato plant because it produces a whole bunch of fruit all at once instead of continual fruiting over a couple of months. This makes it a great plant if you plan to do a lot of sauce making.

[alsoSarah]

Chiming in to say that whenever I freeze my thick, long simmered tomato-and-meat sauce, it ends up being noticeably thinner afterward.


AlsoSarah

[hildare]

and.. don't forget the marvelous power of tomato paste.
Good suggestion about the Romas for canning, too.

[jeanine123]

Thanks for the added tips! Unfortunately, I don't have room for another tomato plant. The one that's currently in there is well on it's way to taking over half of my 8 foot long raised bed and I'm already hoping that the herbs, zucchini and cucumber can hold their own. I'll have to keep the draining tip in mind and also remember to remove the seeds when I try this. And get DH to build that second raised bed this fall.