This recipe for yellow (or golden) tomato sauce is a must-have for your summer! It is easy to make, relatively quick to cook, chunky and rustic, bursting with basil, and absolutely delicious. Make it creamy or keep it more pure, the choice is yours. It’s perfect as a spaghetti sauce or pasta sauce, or with any other meal where tomato sauce is needed!
Yellow or golden tomatoes are such a gift! They are super sweet and juicy and perfect for sauce. With some dishes, I really feel like you need to SEE the red of a tomato, but I feel no bias against the color of this sauce. It cooks down to a rich orange, and it actually gets very “glowy”, especially if you don’t opt to add any cream or cheese to it.
What we’re going for today is kind of a rustic, chunky, imperfect sauce. It cooks pretty fast in a small-ish batch (I’m using four pretty large tomatoes here, because that tends to be the number of yellows I get in my heirloom tomato boxes) but you can scale it up to your heart’s content if you don’t mind giving it more time.
Let’s talk ingredients
The ingredients make or break such a simple sauce! So let’s discuss what is important and what is not important:
- Large yellow tomatoes. Or orange, or golden. I’ve got four decent sized ones, so we go to the effort of peeling and de-seeding these. If you wanted to make this sauce with small (cherry or plum sized) tomatoes, you could, but it will work differently – you wouldn’t bother peeling them, so we’d accept some skins in the mix and much more textured finish, and they wouldn’t leach as much moisture so it would be a quicker cook time.
- Minced onion. Teeny tiny pieces please! You can use white or red onion here, or shallots.
- Garlic. Because of course. Four large cloves.
- Balsamic vinegar and sugar. To deepen and enhance the flavors.
- Lots of basil because this is the sort of fresh bright tomato vibe that demands basil. I don’t give a precise measurement here, just a nice handful of basil is good. I’ve chopped it for the batch pictured but in other batches I’ve let the leaves stay whole and both ways work well.
- Olive oil. We are generous with the olive oil in this recipe, it adds a wonderful richness.
- Mascarpone (optional). A dollop of mascarpone will give the sauce a creamy feel and it also serves to thicken up the more watery bits and bring some uniformity to the texture. You can also use a dollop of cream cheese. I don’t always use this, and I don’t always use as much as a tablespoon. When it’s peak summer and the tomatoes are so juicy and delicious it’s hard not to take a bite as you’re peeling them, I am generally less inclined to add the mascarpone and more inclined to embrace a more sloppy juicy sauce.
- Parmesan or parmesan style cheese (optional). We get a hit of salty umami goodness from this, and it also helps with the thickening aspect. You don’t need as much as I used (which was a big handful), just a couple tablespoons is fine. Be generous with the salt if you skip it.
The best cookware for the job
A shallow but wide casserole dish is perfect. Since I am making a small batch, this allows the tomatoes to cook down super fast.
If you want to make a bigger batch, you can use a deeper saucepan or casserole dish but it will take longer to cook the deeper the layer of tomatoes is in the pan.
When choosing cookware for tomatoes, avoid reactive pans (aluminium, cast iron and copper being examples) which can be problematic for tomato sauces due to the acidity of the tomatoes reacting with the metals. Opt for stainless steel or enamelled cast iron instead.
The perfect yellow spaghetti night
You can of course use any pasta shape, but I love to serve this with spaghetti, bucatini or angel hair pasta. The following recipes would work well on the same table:
- Halloumi “meatballs”
- Feta & eggplant “meatballs”
- Air Fryer Garlic Bread
- Sweet Pepper & Mozzarella Salad
- Easy Smoky Roasted Corn Salad with Avocado & Mozzarella
- Minty Mediterranean Bocconcini Salad
Making this sauce to freeze it
This sauce freezes well for 6 months, so if you have a big batch of yellow tomatoes, you can make sauce to last through the autumn and winter too! If you are making this sauce with the intention of freezing it, I would be inclined to leave out the mascarpone or parmesan as the texture of the cream won’t be quite the same when you defrost it. You can of course add these ingredients when you defrost and serve it if you wish.
More summer tomato recipes
Yellow Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 4 large (2.2 lb) yellow tomatoes, about 1kg or just over 2lbs
- 4 Tbsp olive oil
- ½ white or brown onion
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp sugar
- ¼ tsp balsamic vinegar, higher quality, thick balsamic
- 1 handful grated parmesan cheese, or vegetarian Italian hard cheese
- 1 Tbsp mascarpone cheese, or a drizzle of heavy cream
- 1 bunch basil
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Prepare your tomatoes. Lightly cut out an X shape on the bottom of the skins. Place in a bowl and pour boiling water over the top. After 1-2 minutes, take them out, drain the water, and place them back in the bowl.4 large yellow tomatoes
- Peel the tomatoes (the skins should come away easily after being soaked) and chop them into 3-4 large pieces each, slicing from top to bottom, discarding the stem and the toughest part of the core. With the pieces that remain, scoop out the big clusters of seeds and membrane, but there is no need to be a perfectionist about it. We don't want to drain too many of the juices, and a few seeds are OK. Place the tomatoes in a bowl and set aside.
- Heat 1 Tbsp of the olive oil in a wide bottomed, casserole dish or saucepan. Over a very gentle heat, saute the onions and garlic until they are soft. Try not to let anything go brown in the process.1/2 white or brown onion, 4 cloves garlic, 4 Tbsp olive oil
- Bump up the heat and add about 1/3rd of the tomatoes to the pan, and mix through, allowing them to start cooking and releasing juices. Add another 1/3rd to the pan, and once they're starting to break down, add the remaining 1/3rd. Mix constantly, breaking up the tomatoes with the spoon.
- You can use a potato masher to encourage the tomatoes to break up further, if you wish.
- Add the remaining 3 Tbsps of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and sugar to the pan. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover and allow to cook for 1-2 hours, until a thick sauce has formed and the oil starts to come away from the tomatoes.1/4 tsp balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp sugar
- Finally, mix in the mascarpone and parmesan until melted through. Taste test and add additional salt and pepper as needed.1 Tbsp mascarpone cheese, 1 handful grated parmesan cheese
- Add the basil leaves, stir through.1 bunch basil
- Serve.
This sauce is amazing! Absolutely love it. Gave my daughter a jar and she said she likes it better than red sauce. I grew yellow tomatoes for the first time and will now grow them every year just to make this sauce, which I will jar so I can have it all year. The only thing I didn’t do was add the mascapone cheese. I didn’t think it needed anything else; it was perfect.
I am so happy to hear this! And very envious of your yellow tomato crop, we are trying to grow tomatoes but it’s tricky in Scotland!
Lisa, did you can this to preserve it or did you just freeze it? I would love to make this and can it but not sure how I’d do that….any input would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
I have a bumper crop of yellow tomatoes this year and was wondering if this recipe could be canned without the cheese of course/ It was enjoyed by the whole family and will be on my meal rotation.
So glad you enjoyed this! I really couldn’t comment when it comes to canning, I’ve never done it and I think there’s a lot of nuance to it that I wouldn’t understand, but the sauce does freeze nicely if you want to preserve it!
Can I do this with the smaller yellow pear tomatoes? I have hundreds!
Yes – smaller tomatoes are different though. You won’t be able to peel and de-seed them so just halve them and add them to the pan, you’ll have a more textured sauce. They will also cook faster because there’s less moisture to reduce.
My sauce turned brown when I added the balsamic and completely lost the bright yellow/orange that I saw in the pictures.
Hi there, I am so sorry to see this. Did you just add the 1/4 teaspoon? Mine goes from a bright yellow to a darker more orangey hue after adding balsamic (you can see the distinction in the process pictures) but still bright. It may depend on your balsamic vinegar’s concentration or the original colour of your tomatoes or a bit of both. You could definitely leave it out next time.
I had a ton of sun gold and yellow pear tomatoes and this was such a delicious use of them! Used an immersion blender after simmering to break down more of the peels but still kept it pretty rustic. Used creme fraiche instead of mascarpone. Thank you for the recipe!!
Delighted to hear this, thanks for the feedback! 😁
I made this sauce using the 2″ round yellow Wendy tomatoes I grew in my container garden this summer. It was fantastic! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe!
If your freeze it, do you add the basil and the marcapone cheese before freezing, or do you just freeze the sauce and use the basil and cheese when reheating? Thanks!
Either way is fine – but freezing without the dairy and basil and adding them fresh will be better. If you freeze it with the dairy and basil the texture won’t be as good but it will still be perfectly tasty and allow you to prepare it more spontaneously.
Thanks so much! I am going to give it a try with it added in – like you said that way I can just take it out after work and heat it up with no fuss! I have a ton of yellow tomatoes ripening so am really looking forward to trying the recipe! I will let you know how it turns out! Thanks again for your speedy reply!
Made this last night! I doubled the recipe and got 48 ounces of sauce, which I froze into two portions. I left off the basil and will add it in when reheating to serve. I did add a little Italian seasoning since I left it out. I did add the mascarpone and parmesan cheeses in though. It tastes amazing!! I am getting a lot of yellow tomatoes in my garden and will definitely make and put more in the freezer.! It took about 3.5 hours to cook down, which is about as expected. Very thankful you shared this wonderful recipe!
Yay! So happy to hear this 🙂
This sauce is AMAZING! I had 2 lbs of yellow cherry tomatoes. Pain to peel, but SO worth it! THANK YOU! Next time I will do 4x so I can freeze some without the basil and cheeses and add them after thawing.
I made this sauce and with lemon boy tomatoes and it was delicious. I didn’t have mascarpone cheese so I substituted cream cheese. I used balsamic glaze. It was a little strong so I added more cream cheese to tone it down.
How far in advance can I make it?
Do you add salt or does the Parmesan make it salty enough?
Yes, you will likely want to add some salt. I’d add a good few grinds of salt when the tomatoes are cooking down, and some more at the end. The amount depends on your parmesan – an expensive aged parmesan is saltier than a cheaper one so taste test and see what you think.
I’ve added this detail to the recipe card now – a lot of my older recipes aren’t explicit about salt and I am trying to update them with guidance since it’s a common question to come up!
This was phenomenal! I made it with an abundance of yellow pear tomatoes from my garden. I used goat mozzarella for the cheese as it was what I had on hand, and I had it on gnocchi. It was absolutely delicious. Would 100% add this to the rotation when yellow/golden tomatoes are in season. Thank you!