The Sauce of September

Now's the time to make—and freeze—a winter's worth of simple, versatile oven-roasted tomato sauce

The shiny round orbs the color of sports cars that get more speeding tickets—also known as tomatoes that look like tomatoes—are the tomatoes that make the best sauce. (Deniss09/Shutterstock) or Vit-vit/Shutterstock

When August hits, I make a point to enjoy summer like it’s going out of season. Some of my favorite ways of doing so involve tomatoes, and I treat it like my job to eat a year’s worth of the ripest, juiciest, most delicious tomatoes I can get my face on.

I also make time to stash away those glorious fruits for year-round enjoyment, in the form of a simple oven-roasted tomato sauce. At the end of every summer, I freeze this universal ingredient—shooting for quantities that will stretch through the winter.