Can you make a simple sauce from heirloom cherry tomatoes? YES, and it’s delicious. I love it because it is quick, easy, healthy and tastes great on just about everything. Totally inspirational, I find myself inventing new ways to use tomato sauce because I just love the rich, sweet flavor of these delicious tomatoes. I love this sauce so much that I actually wrote an entire blog sharing all the details, different uses, why I love it and how I came to use it. Feel free to skip the blog and go right to the recipe.
Why Heirloom Tomatoes?
I DO realize it is December, and that is not when a blogger would decide to write about a simple sauce from heirloom tomatoes. BUT it is December, and that is when I have been eating them. An heirloom tomato is simply a tomato made with seeds that have been passed down from season to season. They are not genetically modified, instead the pollination occurs naturally yielding tomatoes with unique shapes and colors. Being able to buy a pint of rainbow cherry tomato grown from various heirloom seeds is amazing. Each tomato is bursting with a slightly different flavor. So yes, a simple sauce from heirloom cherry tomatoes is delicious especially in December!
The Ingredients
There are only four ingredients in the Simple Heirloom Tomato sauce. Once you have the heirloom tomatoes, the other three are probably already in your pantry:
- Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes
- Roma Tomatoes
- Kosher salt
- Tomato Paste
- Red Pepper flakes
The Story Behind this Simple Heirloom Tomato Sauce
If you search Google for heirloom tomato sauce, you will find recipes, but I did not know that prior to making my own. Even though I am fortunate to live in Florida and go to Farmer’s Markets all year, these tasty finds are coming from our local Publix supermarket. My Sweetheart Mark, who as you know does the grocery shopping, has been buying these delicious rainbow cherry tomatoes. In fact, he has been buying them in bulk because they were selling buy-one-get-one-free.
Olive Sunshine Recipes
One particularly busy week, we found ourselves with three full containers of these heirloom beauties. Saturday always becomes a bit of a refrigerator clean out day. I spend the day finding creative ways to use left-over produce to make room for the new scores for the week. Knowing I always have late nights at work, I made an easy dish to be thrown in the freezer and reheated. With two aging zucchinis and two pints of mushrooms that needed to be used, I threw together an Easy Zucchini Mushroom Bake with this amazing Heirloom Tomato Sauce and feta cheese.
I love using this delicious sauce for a variety of dishes. Sometimes I use it chunky, other times I process it down smoothly. I made a vegetable frittata and spread some of this sauce, kept chunky, on the top for a hearty topping. The textures and flavors of this velvety sauce keep inspiring me to find new uses for it.
I have been working on perfecting my recipe for Zucchini Boats. It has been missing that certain zing. I keep experimenting with new combinations to come up with something delicious and unique from the other recipes floating around in the blogsphere. Using this Simple Heirloom Tomato Sauce made the dish and I finally feel ready to share an Olive Sunshine’s Italian Chickpea Zucchini Boats recipe!
Other Cherry Tomatoes Can be Substituted
I find that cherry tomatoes last considerably longer in the refrigerator than other varieties of tomatoes. That is one reason this sauce works so well for my lifestyle. If I come home late for work, and do not have time to prepare what is on the menu I can whip this up in a few minutes. Add some pasta, presto, I have a dinner my Sweetheart loves. While this entire post is about heirloom tomatoes, if you only have grape or cherry tomatoes, feel free to substitute. It is a wonderful way to have a fresh sauce in a few minutes. Fresh is always better than from a can.
I invite you to poke around the Olive Sunshine site. Explore the delicious uses for this wonderfully simple heirloom tomato sauce. I hope it saves your busy weeknights with these easy and delicious meals like it does mine.