Whenever we can, we make our own tomato passata, using an adaptation of a Bill Granger recipe. Forget your preconceived notions of sauce making being an all day affair involving barrels of tomatoes and backyard boilers – this is an easy way to make a reasonable quantity of passata in a relatively short time. We freeze our sauce in one cup (250ml) takeaway containers, which is a good working quantity for us – one tub is enough to top three pizzas, or three tubs will make a batch of bolognese sauce.
To give you some idea of value – we bought a box of romas from Jimmy the Tomato Man last Friday for $10 ($1/kilo). We still have two kilos left, which means the eight kilos we used cooked down to nine small takeaway containers. It doesn’t seem like very much, but remember that the tomatoes have already reduced. As a result, you don’t need to use nearly as much in a recipe, nor do you need to cook it for as long. Apart from being more economical (our bolognese sauce uses $9 – $10 worth of tinned and bottled tomatoes, when we don’t have our own), the homemade passata tastes better – Big Boy now won’t eat pizzas topped with anything else.
Step 1: buy great tomatoes. Romas are by far the best if you can afford them, but the recipe will work with any sort of red tomato, providing they’re ripe and juicy, but not too mushy. Wash them and cut them in half, then lay them out on a large oven tray lined with parchment paper.
Step 2: Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle over with salt. Bake in a preheated 220C oven for about half an hour, or until some of the edges just start to blacken.
Step 3: In the meantime, heat olive oil in a large pan and fry some chopped onion and garlic until soft. Add the roasted tomatoes with any juices to the pan and stir well.
Step 4: Add a large spoonful of tomato relish (optional). We use one that Pete makes.
Step 5: Cook well until the skins separate from the tomato flesh and the passata is reduced and thickened to your liking.
Step 6: Process the sauce through a food mill to remove the skins.
Step 7: Ladle the finished passata into containers, label and store in the freezer.
. . . . .
© copyright 2009 by Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. All rights reserved.
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Love this! What is a tomato relish?
Hi Angela, it’s like a tomato chutney. Pete puts it on his pies and beefburgers. It’s optional – the original recipe we based our passata on didn’t include it. Cheers, Celia
Celia, nice recipe, thanks. A couple of comments:
We buy ten pound cans of tomatoes at Costco — no salt and canned at peak of ripeness. It’s tough to find beautiful tomatoes during much of the year here, and in a taste test we found we couldn’t really tell the difference when the tomatoes are cooked for so long.
[Fresh does make a big difference in quick cooked sauces where the freshness shines through.]
Consider using a food processor to chop up the skins. They contain many of the nutrients and almost all of the fiber in the tomatoes. [I’m not sure if Aussie suffer from too low levels of fiber, but US levels, especially for males, are significantly below recommendations. Not just regularity either — heart health improves greatly with 45 grams of fiber a day for adult males, for example.]
We add tomato salsa (my recipe) or, more often, concentrated tomatoes for a depth of flavor.
Best, Bob
Thanks Bob! We can and do get great Italian canned tomatoes here when the fresh ones are out of season.
Cheers, Celia
The first time I made roasted passata, I left the skins on, because I hate to waste and because I don’t have a food mill. Anyhow, on one occassion, I made tomato soup and then for the first time understood why people mill the skins out! You end up with string, sharp bits of skin!
So today, when I made another batch in which I roasted the tomatoes whole (and baked a whole bulb of garlic too), I took the skins off when they came out of the oven and then blended the flesh.
Sometimes, I add coriander leaves, dried chilies and fresh ginger to a portion and have that with rice/rice balls/noodles and to another portion, I add basil and garlic….I tend to be adding more and more crushed cumin!
Oz, we used to make it in the same way – we use to cook the tomatoes, and then blitz them in the food processor. But we’ve since found that removing the skins gives us a much more useful sauce for other dishes. Cumin sounds like a wonderful addition!
Why couldn’t the tomatoes be scalded, cooled in ice water & skinned before you even begin? That’s what I do with other tomato products. Would they fall apart in the oven?
Robin, I think they might fall apart – they’re barely holding together after being roasted, even with the skins on.
Pete sometimes blanches, skins and deseeds some extra tomatoes, puts them through the food mill, then drains them through a cloth and adds them to the finished passata for extra richness. It’s very nice, but lots more work!
I tried roasting the tomatoes whole in a non-stick roasting tin, no paper, no salt, but sprinkled with sugar and each previously skinned with the hard “dimple” at the top removed. They were still firm enough to transfer to a blender after 40 mins. I added the softened red onions and garlic, then whizzed them all. No further cooking. The consistency was satisfactory. For any particular further recipe individual seasoning is required, e.g Basil for a soup.
How long would this keep if you put in jar rather than freeze?? Would it be best stored in the fridge??
Joanne, I’ve never tried canning my tomato passata, but my friend Joanna has – you might want to have a look at her post here:
http://zebbakes.com/2011/08/22/t-is-for-tarragon-tomato-passata/