How to Can Diced Tomatoes

If you have tomatoes coming out your ears, this recipe for canning diced tomatoes is exactly what you need!

I like to can a lot of diced tomatoes to add to soups, casseroles, and yes, even chili throughout the winter.

I’ve said it before, and I stand by it – the flavor of home grown, vine ripened, summer tomatoes is so far superior to anything else, that once you can your own, you’ll never want to go back to buying sub-par versions from the store.

You can enjoy the flavor of summer all year, but you have to preserve the tomatoes yourself.

What kind of tomatoes to choose

As always, I recommend using what you have. But if you’re looking for what to buy, or what to grow, here’s the deal:

Slicing tomatoes like better boy are going to give you a lot of water juice, and less meaty flesh.

So choose a paste tomato, or beefy heirloom tomato. While we’re not making paste or sauce, when we make diced tomatoes, we are focusing on the meaty flesh that the paste is made from.

Some of the most popular are Amish paste, Roma, and Beefsteak.

One that I think is particularly good is An Marzano, an Italian heirloom. In fact, it’s often referred to as the king of paste tomatoes.

While not technically a paste tomato, I also enjoy brandywine, because of its mild flavor. When using a more water tomato like that, it’s good to scoop out some, or all, or the seed cavities before dicing though.

Equipment needed for canning diced tomatoes

This is a very simple process, so there’s not a lot of equipment needed for canning tomatoes, other than your normal kitchen tools, which I’ll go over below.

• A pot to heat water. Blanching the tomatoes makes the skinning process many times easier. I usually use a gallon-sized kettle.
• Sharp knives. I usually use a paring knife for peeling, and a serrated knife, like this tomato knife, for coring and dicing.
• Cutting board. for dicing and coring. I often sit my cutting board in baking sheet to contain the mess.
• Water Bath Canner. This can be a stock pot, or tamale pot, as long as it has a rack in the bottom, and is substantially taller than the jars you’ll be canning in it. You can also buy a water bath canning kettle. I have the granite one pictured in the background of these photos, which works well, and a stainless steel kettle, which I like, because it has a glass lid so I can see what’s going on inside. Both of these come with a rack, and hold 7 quart jars, or 9 pints per batch.
• Canning jars. For our small family, I typically use pint jars for diced tomatoes, and a few random half pints, and quarts to give me options for different sized recipes. I’m not picky about jar brand. For water bath canning like this, I’ll even reuse mayonnaise jars.
• Canning lids. Now lids, I am a little bit picky about. I have found that great value lids have a higher failure rate than a lot of others, and that Denali has the lowest failure rate, so I usually order those in bulk.
• Canning funnel. This just make filing jars faster, easier, and less messy.
• Canning tongs. I’m pretty minimalist when it comes to canning equipment, but I do like to have a jar lifter, because inevitably, I’ll need to take jars out of the hot canner before they’re cool enough to touch so I can get the next batch started.

How To Can Diced Tomatoes

1. Heat 2 quarts of water in a 4 quart kettle (or fill whatever pot you use with enough water to cover tomatoes) to boiling
2. Wash tomatoes while water is heating and then, working in batches, blanch tomatoes for about 45 seconds each to loosen skins. When tomatoes are properly blanched, you may see some skin bread and curl. The skin will easily pull off of the flesh.
   
   
3. After blanching tomatoes, rinse with cool water, and peel. You may need to poke it with a knife to break the skin and get started, but a property blanched tomato should release its skin with no more than hand pressure.
4. Remove the hard core from the center of your tomatoes, and then dice into whatever size pieces you prefer. I often for for a more “petite diced” size since my kids don’t love big chunks. For large batches, you can give the tomatoes a quick whirl in the food processor if you prefer, and don’t mind uneven chunks, and possibily a lot of pulverization.
   
   
   
5. Prepare jars and canner.
6. In each pint jar, add 1/4 teaspoon citric acid, or 1 Tablespoon of bottled lemon juice (double for quarts, halve for half pints, etc.)
7. Ladle diced tomatoes into jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Top with water or tomato juice if tomatoes haven’t produced enough liquid to cover themselves.
8. Wipe rims of jars with a damp cloth or paper towel to clean and remove debris.
9. Screw down lids and rings firmly.
10. Pack into prepared hot water bath canner, ensuring that water in canner covers the jars by a depth of at least 1 inch.
11. Heat over medium-high heat to a rolling boil.
12. Process pint jars for 40 minutes, or quart jars for 45 minutes.
13. Remove from heat, and remove cover.
14. Let jars cool in water for 30+ minutes, before remove from canner.
15. When removing hot jars from canner, it is wise to cover them with a towel until they are substantially cooled.
16. Let rest for 24 horse. Check for seal, wash jars if needed (mine always have hard water residue on them), and store in a cool place out of direct light.

Other recipes for you:

• Canning tomato soup
• Canning cherry tomatoes
• How to can tomato sauce
• Canning stewed tomatoes
• Peach salsa recipe for canning

 

Print