Prepping them is simple.  It helps to have one large bowl to place everything into so that you can add all the ingredients and stir them together.  However, you can also just mix each pan separately as you go. Cut the smaller tomatoes into quarters, and larger ones into eight pieces.  Either place in individual dishes or in a large bowl. Chop onions into large pieces, and add to bowl or pans along with minced garlic, basil, salt and pepper and olive oil.  It’s important to be generous with the amount of olive oil used as you need to coat the tomatoes and the dish so that the ingredients roast, rather than burn.

As these aren’t shelf stable and you don’t have to carefully follow the recipe to make it safe for canning, there’s lots of room for adjustments according to your taste.  Feel free to add more basil or less onion or another pepper mix you love. It’s possible to use beefsteak tomatoes instead of romas, but they have higher water content and will take longer to roast than romas.

Place the pans into a 350-degree oven and prepare to stick close to home, as it generally takes somewhere between 2 and 3 hours – especially if you have filled your oven and layered 3 or 4 trays on the oven racks.. Set your timer so you don’t forget, and stir every 30 minutes or so – this speeds up the evaporation process and helps them roast evenly. They are done when the majority of the liquid is evaporated and the tomatoes have some char spots on them.

Allow to cool in the pans, and divide into freezer-safe zip-lock bags.  I usually put about 1 cup of the roasted romas in each bag. Squeeze the air out of bags to flatten them, and don’t forget to label the bags with the contents!