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Pizza with roasted sheet pan tomato sauce.

Pizza with roasted sheet pan tomato sauce.

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I'm seeing lots of questions about making tomato sauce in Zone 3 gardening groups right now, and that's exciting. It means people's gardens are doing well, and that gives me hope that I, too, will soon have delicious tomatoes to sauce up my kitchen. 

I know a lot of folks prefer canning their tomato sauce, but I have always preferred roasting over the saucepan.

Roasting concentrates the flavor of tomatoes, and whatever other vegetables you are using to make sauce. That automatically makes it more delicious.

Saucepans are fussy. At some point, the bottom starts to stick and it may burn. Then you lose a whole batch of sauce. Sad day.

There’s also a point where you’ve lost enough moisture that the sauce begins to pop. That's a mell of a hess. It can also cause a burn, if it happens to land on your skin.

There’s another reason, though, that I prefer sheet pan sauces. Roasting helps create more lycopenes, an important antioxidant that fights of free radicals in the body. It's also what makes a red tomato red. According to a study by Cornell University, a mere two minutes of cooking gives tomatoes 54 percent more lycopene. Thirty minutes bumps the amount up 164 percent.

What about the vitamin C, you say?

Cooking does reduce vitamin C— but it doesn’t get rid of all of it. Two minutes cooking time results in 10 percent less vitamin C versus an uncooked tomato. Thirty minutes is 29 percent less. To me, this trade off is worth it.

Tomatoes it happens aren't the only vegetable whose nutrients increase with cooking. Carrots are another. So I happened to stumble on a recipe long ago that uses carrots and tomatoes to make sauce. It didn’t please my daughter at first. At that age, she was a picky eater. But the sauce was really good, and ultimately she had seconds and then thirds of the homemade pizza made with that sauce, despite making fun of it. So I would say it’s been kid-tested and mother approved.

I don’t recall where I got the recipe all those many years ago. I’ve changed a few things along the way. You will, too, I'm sure. Enjoy!

2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

1 onion, peeled and cut into large chunks

Halve the tomatoes and remove the seeds. Place cut sides down on a sheet pan covered in aluminum foil and greased. Add carrot and onion chunks. Brush the vegetables with olive oil and sprinkle with spices, salt and pepper. Roast in a 375 degree oven 45 or so minutes until the tomato skins are lightly charred. They will come off easily.

Once cooked, skin the tomatoes and place in a blender with the carrot and onion chunks. Add a teaspoon or two of fresh lemon juice and a tablespoon or so of olive oil. Puree. Taste the sauce. If it is too sharp, add a little sugar to adjust the balance. If it’s not sharp enough, add more lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

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