Spaghetti Sauce With Fresh Tomatoes
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This spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes is a delicious, healthy, vegetarian recipe. It’s an easy sauce that’s perfect for summer when you have an abundance of fresh garden tomatoes. Bursting with the vibrant flavors of ripe tomatoes, fragrant herbs, and crunchy pine nuts, this no-cook tomato sauce is perfect for summer days when you don’t want to spend time in a hot kitchen.
As the temperature rises and the days grow longer, I don’t always want to heat up my kitchen to make dinner. I have a couple of raised boxes in my backyard and I can grow just enough to excite me on a daily basis. I grow a lot of fresh herbs, plus arugula, zucchini and of course, tomatoes.
Nothing is more satisfying than grabbing a little of this and a little of that from your own backyard and turning it into dinner. This spaghetti sauce with fresh garden tomatoes is the simplest, absolute best, freshest, fastest and easiest recipe you’ll ever NOT cook!
I usually serve it on top of angel hair pasta, but use your favorite pasta shape! It’s also delicious as a topping for bruschetta (BRUS-SKETTA).
Best tomatoes for this sauce
This recipe is a great way to take advance of the fresh tomatoes in your garden. If you’re growing a variety of tomatoes, use a combination. Big juicy tomatoes for flavor and cherry tomatoes for texture and color. Heirloom tomatoes are another great option. San Marzano tomatoes are the gold standard for homemade pasta sauce, but are impossible to get fresh. It’s best to use the best fresh tomatoes you can find. Farmers markets are a great source for unusual tomato varieties.
Ingredients for fresh tomato sauce
- fresh tomatoes or cherry tomatoes.
- Pecorini or parmesan cheese
- garlic cloves
- fresh basil leaves
- pine nuts
- Extra-virgin Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- kosher salt and black pepper to taste
- Red pepper flakes (optional)
- pasta
How to make this spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes
This is an effortless summer sauce that can be made while you wait for the pasta water to boil. While it takes just a few minutes to make, you can also make it a few hours ahead of time and let it sit on the counter or fridge until ready to serve.
- In a large bowl, a chopped tomatoes. If using grape tomatoes, quarter them.
- Add some fresh basil, cut chiffonade. (OK, I love to use that word). Chiffonade is one of those fancy French culinary terms that means, “roll all the leaves together into a tight little package and chop really finely.” Check out this One Minute Food Byte, to learn how to chiffonade basil.
- Add in the pine nuts, garlic, and cheese.
- Drizzle with olive oil and a squirt or two of balsamic vinegar, then season with salt and pepper.
- Stir it all together to combine, then let everything “macerate“ in a bowl at room temperature on your counter for a 1/2 hour to an hour.
- Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil.
- Cook pasta to al dente. Reserve some of the excess water.
Do you have a lot of tomatoes?
Here are some recipes to take advantage of tomato season.
Classic Caprese Salad is the perfect way to use large tomatoes.
Tomato Tart with cheese is naturally gluten free and low carb.
Oven Roasted Tomato Salad is a great way to use up extra cherry or plum tomatoes.
Greek Salad is perfect for vine-ripened tomatoes.
Fresh Tomato Summer Pasta Sauce
Ingredients
Instructions
- Chop tomatoes. Add basil, cheese, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
- Stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let sit while pasta is cooking, about 20 minutes.
- Toss with pasta or on top bruschetta.
I love recipes like this! In the heat of summer the last thing I want to do is cook so I can see myself making this on multiple occasions.
Thanks for sharing at The Weekend Social. Looking forward to seeing what you have for us next week.
Thank you Ricki, and thank you for hosting!
Such a nice summer recipe Cynthia. And GORGEOUS photos. I’ve scrolled up and down multiple times. Love it.
Thanks so much Libby!
Your pasta picture stopped me in my tracks…and putting it on top of pasta is wonderful. Thanks
Thank you for stopping by Judy!
Thanks for coming and linking up at #The Weekend Social. Please be sure to come back next week starting Thursdays at 9PM EST on Kitchen Dreaming.com ! I hope to see you there! Pinned
Thanks so much for hosting Dina!
This pasta looks so fresh! Love it!
Thank you Ambar! It is so fresh and delicious! We had it just a few nights ago on top of spaghetti squash for a low-carb alternative!
Oh yum this looks absolutely delicious! I am loving that sauce!
I’ve never tried a no-cook pasta sauce, but this is so fresh and looks wonderful! It’s absolutely perfect for summer and I remember when you made this on the morning news in Santa Barbara! Very cool!
I am a beginner when it comes to cooking. But this was a quick and simple recipe that my wife LOVED. The roasted pine nuts and mix of ingredients give this vegetarian dish a savory depth that neither of us were expecting. I have added it to the recipe book and am planning to use it for mothers day!
Thank you Ozzy! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! It’s such an easy dish! Thank you for joining my cooking class!
This fresh tomato pasta sauce looks so fresh and delicious! I can’t wait for my tomatoes and basil to be ready in my garden so that I can make this.
So refreshing, my kids absolutely die for pasta and marinara is their favorite!
I’m glad, it’s almost like “fresh marinara”.
Love all the fresh ingredients in the sauce. Can’t wait to eat a big bowl of this deliciousness!
This pasta is just perfect for summer. So fresh and colorful. And the perfect way to use garden tomatoes. 🙂
This is such a perfect recipe for all of those fresh summer tomatoes that are about to show up at my local farmers market! Can’t wait to try this. 🙂
This is really nice. Perfect for a light summer meal!
one of our family favorites when our tomatoes come in!
This pasta dish is so light and lovely. Fabulous idea for summer.
Don’t laugh- but should the pasta be hot when served or can even that be cool?
Actually that’s a good question! We usually serve it warm/hot with the room temperature sauce with spaghetti noodles, but I’ve also made it with rotelli or fusilli and served it cold like a pasta salad!
So refreshing! Soo much better than the traditional method, the fresh tomatoes from my garden made it POP! TYSM for this recipe! Enter.