I guess it's all a matter of taste. If you like that "roasted flavor" then go ahead and do that. I would roast the tomatoes if I was making salsa.
Diane

I have a friend who always makes her tomato sauces this way... only she puts everything -- tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc.-- in the pan to roast first then either bags and freezes, or purees the roasted tomatoes before bagging and freezing. I haven't tried this myself, but I can tell you that hers surely does taste good.

There are some that have found that oven baking the pressed tomato sauce will help to thicken it more quickly. Because its put in a wide, shallow pan and baked, it does remove a lot of the water so they are more concentrated.

I did that last year, I put my tomato juice in an enamel roaster, and put it on my Weber grill on low, and let it cook down until it was like sauce, then I canned it and processed it in my steam canner on the side burner. Had a cool kitchen the whole time, too! Still have sauce, so haven't done it again thiw year. Shammie

I roasted my plum tomatoes in the oven (475 degrees for almost an hour) before running them through the villaware -- made for a very nice thick puree, and delicious flavor! But the tomatoes sure do shrink down a lot in the oven -- what looks like a lot going in doesn't look like so much coming out!

Emily

Thanks everyone This is exactly the info I wanted.

Emily, did you thicken your sauce even more after running them through the Villaware?

Did you add any other veggies for flavor (bell peppers, garlic, onion, etc?)

I really want a nice thick sauce...maybe slightly thicker than commercial tomato sauce (but not paste).
Deanna

Deanna, I think roasted tomato sauce would be wonderful.

Last year I sort of accidentally made a nice sauce out of the vegies I was roasting for the Roasted Tomato-Garlic soup (cookie sheet full of unpeeled tomatoes, a couple of carrots, a large onion, a LOT of garlic and some basil). I'd left the vegies in a low oven longer than usual until they became all caramelized and gooey, hit the mix with a stick blender and it made a nice thick sauce to serve over pasta. It was so good I'm making it that way on purpose this year.

Deanna --

After roasting, I dumped them all in a big metal mixing bowl, where they continued to release quite a bit of liquid. I basically poured off that liquid, and once that had been done, the finished product that came through the villaware was quite thick and ready to be canned as is. Just be aware that you really need a lot of tomatoes for this -- I did three half-sheet pans worth of plum tomatoes, and that yielded just 4 pints!

Emily

I need more tomatoes!!!!

Katie's Roasted Garlic Soup is awesome (one big ccookie sheet full of the veggies made 4 pints).

Another sheet of veggies was roasted, run through the Villaware (pulp run 2 more times), then cooked down in the oven for another 2 hours. Made a nice, rich, thick sauce..........2 pints :+(

I have tons of green toms, but they are sure taking their sweet time getting ripe. I am NOT a patient person. :+)
Deanna