Homemade Tomato Sauce

[aeiou]

It is that time of the year when the home grown tomatoes will be growing faster than we can eat them so we turn to canning them. I have successfully canned tomatoes in the past but have never attempted to make and can tomato sauce. Does anyone have a good recipe and method for making and canning homemade tomato sauce?

[Mama Mangia]

aeiou - We can tomatoes, tomato sauce, homemade tomato puree, etc.

When you say "tomato sauce" are you looking for a seasoned sauce, pasta sauce, etc.??????

Tomato sauce can be raw, cooked slightly or cooked for a length of time - it is your preference.

The longer the sauce cooks the thicker it becomes as the water cooks out of it.

Depending on the amount of tomatoes and the size of your pot - I have simmered tomatoes to make puree for up to 2 days non-stop. Yes - the pot was so big and it was one huge batch - no sleeping for 2 days. Unseasoned, plain roma tomatoes.

Regular plain tomato sauce can take 2 to 20 hours depending on the pot.

I have canned pints, quarts, and 1 1/2 qt. jars. Seasoned and unseasoned. Unseasoned gives me the versatality to do what I want with it. Seasoned can set some limitations.

I can spaghetti sauce, with and without meat. Also pizza sauce and other sauces that I use for certain dishes (with peppers and onions or carmalized onions and garlic for instance)

Remember - the longer it simmers - the thicker it gets. Season if you want or you can leave plain. And plain, unseasoned tomatoes can be used in any dish.

So you type of sauce is up to you.

[aeiou]

Mama - Thanks for all the great information. I was thinking of unseasoned kind of thick tomato sauce. That way I could use it in any recipe that called for tomato sauce and can add seasoning as needed. It does sound like I need to allow plenty of time to make the sauce. Size of batch all depends on our tomato crop size this year. When you say size of pot matters is that only related to the number of tomatoes being cooked or does size play another part in the process?

[Mama Mangia]

aeiou - Yes it does matter on how many tomatoes. I don't mind the time spent on getting the consistency of the sauce I want - I think the scalding, peeling, seeding is a pain! But I've done it for years and will continue to do it for many more years.

You're right - plain tomato sauce is more versatile!

And don't be afraid to make smaller batches. Mama Dumb-Dumb here would always use the biggest dang pot I could get my hands on and then make tomato puree - really thick! If I was lucky - 48 hours later it was done - but I wasn't. It would have been much quicker for me to have 4 pots going instead of 1 huge monser of a pot!

You could learn by my silly mistakes!!

[aeiou]

I'm a true believer in the fact that life is to short and you can't possibly make all the mistakes yourself so you should learn from other's mistakes. Thanks for sharing your mistake with us. I will make sure to use multiple smaller pots.

I agree the worst part of canning tomatoes is the scalding, peeling and seeding. I always seem to burn my fingers even though I put the blanched tomatoes immediately in ice water.

[Mama Mangia]

Those lovely hot acid burns from the tomatoes!!! Don't they just feel lovely! Until someone comes up with some sort of gizmo to do it for us - we will just have to suffer! We fool ourselves into thinking that the ice water helps!

The large pot that I used took up 2 burners on the stove it was so big. After that - it was smaller pots. Plus that gave me the advantage to make one pot with onions, peppers and seasonings! It was worth washing 4 pots instead of one!

[GregGraves]

I picked two tomatoes from the garden this morning. The first ones this year. I hope they taste good. There's nothing like garden fresh tomatoes. And cukes are just showing on the vines I planted last month.

[Raquelita]

Another idea is to dehydrate the tomatoes and they'll be dried veggies to snack on . There is a company called "Just Tomatoes" who sells them and i bet you could make them at home.

[Mama Mangia]

I have dried tomatoes - but it takes quite a while because of the water content.