How to Can Tomato Sauce

If you’re wondering what to do with all your tomatoes, you can learn how to make tomato sauce with this easy recipe!

During mid summer, we get a lull in the garden. It’s too hot for pollination, and no matter how much we water, the lack of rain still leaves us lacking.

But then it starts to cool off and BAM! We’re back. More tomatoes than you can shake a stick at.

My family is funny, they don’t like the tomatoes themselves very much, but they do loves everything you can do with tomatoes, and tomato sauce might just be our most used canned good.

I usually make quite a few stewed tomatoes for adding to soups, and can copious amounts of salsa for all kinds of uses, but sauce it staple for sure, and it’s a simple way to process a large quantity of tomatoes with minimal input. And then it’s really easy to add a bit of  garlic, oregano, and basil to make a perfect sauce for pasta or pizza. 

How to choose tomatoes for making sauce

Firm, ripe tomatoes are best for making sauce. I’d rather err on the side of too ripe than not ripe enough. Any greenish parts of a tomato really don’t break down into sauce well.

Technically, there are sauce tomatoes, and there are slicing tomatoes, snacking tomatoes, and more – every tomato has a purpose it was selectively bred for.

However, in my mind, when you’re making sauce, you throw all your extra tomatoes in there, and just do it.

That said, Amish paste, Roma, and San Marzano tomatoes are three of the top sauce-making tomatoes available.  But if you’re growing them, there are a lot to choose from – Rutgers, Oxheart, and Jersey Devil just to name a few more – and I recommend experimenting with a variety and finding your favorites over time.

What you’re looking for in a paste variety is low water content (i.e. small seed cavity), meaty flesh, and good flavor.

Basic Tomato Sauce Recipe

Traditionally, tomatoes are pureed and boiled down until they’re thick. This is simple, but it does take a while, and we do love a good hack.

Here are two that work well:

• Start by quartering your tomatoes, and bring them to a boil. Once they are cooked through, drain off the watery liquid, and run the rest through a food mill such as the Victorio Strainer or ‘Popper”. Cook down the pulp as needed.
• Strain the tomatoes, cooked or raw, through a tomato strainer such as the aforementioned Victorio or Popper, and let settle overnight in a large kettle. This is best done in the refrigerator, or a cool place. The tomato pulp should setting quite a bit overnight, and you can dip the water off of the top. We used to do this a lot, and it cut out cooking time by half or more.

One thing to note: You will get less separation, the less oxygen your raw tomatoes are exposed to when they’re cut. When raw tomatoes are cut, the oxygen begins to react with and bread down the pectin in the tomato. This causes that separation of pulp and water that you often see in home-canned tomato juice and sauce.

That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with it, for the most part, that’s just how it goes when you’re working in an old fashioned kitchen as opposed to a commercial cannery, but it is a good reason to cook the tomatoes before pulpling them. That way you can stave off most of the breakdown and have a more emulsified sauce.

So hacks aside, here is the standard way to make tomato sauce – and honestly the best way when you’re dealing with bushels of tomatoes.

1. Quarter tomatoes, and heat in a larger kettle.
   
   
2. Use a potato masher, or spoon to rough the tomatoes up a bit, stirring vigorously or mashing somewhat to release the juices, so that the tomatoes themselves won’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
3. Bring the tomatoes to a simmer, stirring as needed, and cook through.
4. Remove tomatoes from heat, and process, according to whatever tool you have to remove the skin and seeds from the pulp. If there is a lot of watering juice on top of your tomatoes, feel free to strain that off first, and can it separately as juice.
5. You can use a standard food mill to strain the tomatoes through, or a pricier, and frankly much better tool such as a Victorio-style food mill, or what we call the “popper”.
   
   
6. After tomatoes have been processed, put them back into a large kettle or stock pot, and heat to a simmer. Continue simmering until sauce is reduced to a thick sauce, or your desired consistency. The quantity of tomatoes you have will determine how long this takes – a small amount might take under an hour, while a large pot may take most of the day.
   
   

Equipment needed for canning tomato sauce

To make the tomato sauce, you will need, at minimum, a knife to cut, peel, and deseed the tomatoes, and a way to blend or mash the pulp.

A much easier way, is to use a food mill. But an even better way still is to use a tomato strainer. I like to keep it simple with the Popper. But I will admit that the Victorio strainer is more versatile, and I’ve used it to process everything from blackberries (seedless jam is so good y’all!), to pumpkins, using different attachments.

For the canning process itself, you will need:

• Jars. For my little family, I tend to use pint jars. Rarely do we have need for a whole quart of sauce. Any brand of canning jar is good. I have so many different brands at this point, I can’t even remember them all. I do not prefer wide mouth jars. With almost anything I can get away with, you’ll catch me using regular mouth jars, and there is definitely no need for a wide mouth for tomato sauce. 
• Canning lids. Most jars come with lids if you buy them new, but eventually, you will need to replace those. I really like to buy Denali canning lids in bulk. They’re guaranteed to seal, and very good. I also have several different brands my sister-in-law gave me, and the only brand I really don’t recommend is Great Value. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, the seal rate on them has been pretty abysmal.
• A canning funnel, and jar lifter are also handy to have. They make filling the jars, and putting them in/taking them out of the water bath much easier.
• A water bath canner. This can be a stock pot, with the rack from a pressure canner (or a separately bought rack) in the bottom. Of you can buy a water bath canner. I’ve done both, both work. I will say I really like this one because I don’t have to lift the lid to make sure it’s boiling before I start the timer. I also use it to make cheese when I’m not canning lol.
• Alternatively, you can also pressure can tomato sauce, in which case, you’ll need a pressure canner. 

How to can tomato sauce

When tomato sauce has reached your desired thickness, you can proceed with canning, This is a recipe for canning basic tomato sauce. You can add whatever you prefer to your sauce before you can it, such as black pepper, dried herbs, onion, red peppers, etc. to taste. You can blend those in with an immersion blender, 

1. Prepare canning jars.
2. To each pint jar, add 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice, or to each quart jar, a 2 tablespoons. Alternatively, you can use 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid per pint.
3. Next add 1/2 teaspoon of salt to each pint jar, or 1 teaspoon to each quart jar.
4. Label sauce into jars, leaving 1/2 inch of headspace.
5. Make sure rims of jars are clean and free of debris, then firmly screw down lids and rings.
6. To water bath can, prepare water bath canner with warm to hot water, and place jars into canner, making sure jars are completely covered by the water.
7. Cover canner, and bring to a rolling boil.
8. Process pint jars for 35 minutes, and quart jars for 40 minutes.
9. Remove canner from heat and let cool.
10. To pressure can, Place jars in prepared pressure canner, lock lid, and let heat until a steady stream of steam escapes. Let steam vent for ten minutes. 
11. Close valve, and bring to ten pounds of pressure. 
12. process both pints and quarts for 15 mintues.
13. Remove from heat, and let pressure return to zero naturally. Continue cooling before removing.

Ball Canning book says that in order to prevent siphoning, it’s best to remove canned good from a water bath canner after five minutes of cooling time. I have not found this to be a problem, and prefer to wait longer – at least half an hour – to let the jars cool more and minimize the risk of breaking if/when a cooler draft hits them.

Regardless of which way you do it, you should remove jars, carefully, keeping them upright the entire time, and protecting both it and  yourself, with a towel as you move them.

I recommend keeping them covered with a towel until they are not longer critically hot.

After 24 hours, check seals, and store in a cool place, out of direct light.

Other Canning Recipes For You

• How to Can Cherry Tomatoes
• How to Can Tomato Soup
• How to Can Diced Tomatoes
• How to Can Vegetable Soup

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