The flavors of this fantastic marinara sauce recipe using fermented tomatoes offer that garden fresh tomato taste even in the middle of winter.
Try this fermented tomato sauce recipe made from lacto-fermented tomatoes, fresh green basil, and pickled garlic. You can pour this delicious raw marinara over hot meatballs or homemade pasta and top with a few dehydrated tomatoes.
Why We Love Fermented Tomato Sauce
My family truly adores this recipe. It’s our favorite recipe to make using our fermented tomatoes. Once you try it, you’ll never return to canned or store-bought marinara sauce. Homesteading Hack: This sauce makes the BEST EVER dipping sauce for homemade garlic breadsticks! Use my five-minute bread dough!
As a bonus, it’s incredibly easy to make. Grab your jar of fermented tomatoes from your well-stocked pantry, add the contents of the jar to the blender, add fresh basil and garlic, and blend to your desired consistency. That’s it!
This entirely raw sauce contains healthy enzymes, probiotic powers, and vitamins preserved during fermentation. And, when you ferment tomatoes, they retain the natural vitamins of fresh tomatoes.
When you eat this sauce raw, you consume all of these fantastic nutrients that provide health benefits like boosting your immune system and supporting a healthy digestive system.
Use Your Own Fermented Tomatoes
Of the many preservation methods, we recommend fermenting tomatoes. When you open a jar of fermented tomatoes and experience the fresh tomato basil smell that will fill up your kitchen, you will see why.
You can sweat all day over a hot stove, making tomato sauce, pizza sauce, marinara sauce, salsa, and other tomato recipes to use up and preserve a bountiful tomato harvest. Or, you can simply ferment your tomatoes by stuffing them into canning jars and adding pure salt, fresh water, basil, and garlic. The tomatoes take at least three weeks to ferment and will store well in a cool dark location.
Then, when ready, you can pull out a jar of fermented tomatoes and make a delicious marinara sauce, salsa, or easy tomato soup.
It’s important to note that unripe green tomatoes are unsuitable for this recipe. But there’s a difference between unripe red tomatoes and ripe green tomatoes. So be sure you know your variety! You can still ripen your green tomatoes for fresh eating using our tutorial.
Lacto fermentation is a simple long-term preservation method that adds even more nutrients to your garden’s fresh fruits and vegetables.
Once you learn the basics of fermenting foods, you can experiment with all types of fermented foods. Try our fermented ginger carrots, fermented lemons, fermented ketchup, fermented hot sauce, or homemade lacto-fermented mayonnaise.
How to Make Fermented Tomato Sauce
Supplies Needed
- High-Powered Blender – I love my Vitamix. However, a food processor or a food mill would work fine.
Ingredients
- Fermented Tomatoes – Use fermented tomatoes that have been fermenting in cool, dark storage for a minimum of three weeks (if you can wait that long!) for optimum flavor.
- Fermented Garlic – You can use the fermented garlic from your jar of fermented tomatoes, a few cloves of raw garlic, or homemade pickled garlic.
- Fresh Basil Leaves – Adjust the fresh basil to your flavor preference.
- Jar of Tomatoes – You can add a jar of home-canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, or store-bought canned sauce to cut the salt a bit.
Step-By-Step Directions
- Place all the tomatoes from the Mason jar right into the blender.
- Add the garlic cloves.
- Add 3-4 Fresh Basil leaves or one frozen basil cube.
- You can add a jar of home-canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, or store-bought canned sauce to cut the salt a bit.
- Blend it without any additional liquid to start. Add a little fermenting liquid from the jar of fermented tomatoes if needed.
- Pour it directly over your hot noodles drizzled in olive oil, rice, or meatballs! Homesteading Hack: If you plan to serve this for dinner, do not taste it. It is so good that I have been known to eat a whole bowl of lacto fermented tomato sauce straight from the blender at room temperature, like soup. It is that good!
Did you make this recipe? If so, please leave a star rating in the recipe card below. Then snap a photo and tag us on social media @homesteadingfamily so we can see!
More Fermented Recipes and Tips
- Best Pizza Toppings for Homemade Pizza
- Preserved Limes With Fermentation
- Easy Homemade Fermented Cranberry Sauce
- How To Make Your Own Lacto-Fermented Sauerkraut
- Quick & Easy Refrigerator Pickles (Garlic Dill Pickles)
- Cherry Almond Flavored Kombucha (How to Second Ferment Kombucha)
- Best Fermenting Vessels (And What Else You Can Use!)
- Fermentation for Long-Term Preservation
Raw Fermented Marinara Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 jar fermented tomatoes about 4 large tomatoes
- 3 cloves fermented garlic
- 4 fresh basil leaves
Instructions
- Place all the tomatoes from the Mason jar right into the blender.
- Add the garlic cloves.
- Add 3-4 Fresh Basil leaves or one frozen basil cube.
- Blend it without any additional liquid to start. Add a little fermenting liquid from the jar of fermented tomatoes if needed.
- Pour it directly over your hot noodles drizzled in olive oil, rice, or meatballs!
