Oh, I love this time of year! It’s tomato sauce season!  Fresh tomatoes from the garden are a favorite in this house.  I grow way more tomatoes than we can eat fresh, because we make multiple batches of this tomato sauce recipe.  

As a bonus, I’ve added my tomato canning label templates as a free download

Tomatoes picked at the peak of ripeness have a much higher flavor profile and sugar content, which translates into… (wait for it..). AWESOME SAUCE!!! Lol :).  I always make several big batches of this tomato sauce recipe. My largest season was 50 quarts or so.  Needless to say. I’ve gotten pretty good at this recipe. 

This tomato sauce recipe is a result of several years of experimenting.  It is as close as I can get to what my Italian Grandma made when she made homemade tomato sauce. Hers was the best!  Other than spices, it is pure tomato goodness, which is what makes it so authentic.

This tomato sauce recipe is suitable for canning. But it is so good that you can eat it the day you make it, too.  If using it the same day, give yourself a couple of hours head-start so that it can really thicken up.  

Calculating your tomatoes

Ok,  for this tomato sauce recipe you’ll need 20 cups of tomatoes.  If you are getting your tomatoes from the farmer’s market, you are probably wondering how much that actually is.  Well, it depends upon the type of tomato you can get.  

In my garden, I grow a combination of tomatoes suitable for both eating fresh and making sauce.  If you use all paste tomatoes, the tomatoes will be on the smaller side. Hence, you’ll need more – but they are meatier so they wont cook down quite as much.  If you are using slicing tomatoes, there will likely be a lot more juice. But each tomato will also be a bit bigger.  

Personally, I like to use a mixture of paste and heirloom slicing varieties in my sauce. The paste tomatoes give the sauce a nice meaty texture. And they have a nice consistently low amount of acid. The heirloom varieties add acid, sweetness and a lot of flavor. But of course also add to the liquid content.

Preparing the Tomatoes

To prepare the tomatoes, cut them in thirds or quarters. Remove the stem and core as well as any blemishes, and plop them all in the measuring cups.  Don’t worry about the skins, we’ll remove those later.  There are lots of tutorials out on the web on how to remove tomato skins, but trust me here. This method is so much easier than trying to remove the skins by boiling and putting in cold water.  

When the tomatoes get to the top of the measuring cup, I smoosh them down into the measuring cup. This removes air bubbles and releases some extra juice.  Then fill the measuring cup back to the top.  If you are using juicy slicing tomatoes, this smashing step is important; otherwise you will have a smallish batch of sauce.  (Which isn’t a big deal, by the way, you’ll just need to adjust the size of the jars).

Boiling down the tomatoes

Put a little bit of olive oil or cooking spray on the bottom of a 6-quart pot. Dump all of the quartered tomatoes in. The tomatoes might be a little more than the 6-quart pot can hold at first. But they will very quickly simmer down within 5 minutes and create room for all of the tomatoes. 

Simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour or more. Stir occasionally so that nothing sticks to the bottom of the pot. This could take longer or shorter, depending on what type of tomato you have – and how big your pieces are.  Surprisingly, paste tomatoes or cherry tomatoes both could take a little longer to boil down, despite being smaller. This is because they usually are a bit meatier.

The tomatoes will boil down so that there’s no more big chunks. When you have mostly juice, skins and pulp, turn the stove off and let it cool. Next step we remove the skins and the seeds. 

Removing skins and seeds

Run the juice and pulp mixture through a strainer or sieve.  (Or, save your back and use this Food Strainer and Sauce Maker for tomatoes!). The size of the hole of your strainer is important. You want something big enough to allow the juice and pulp to run through. But, small enough to keep the seeds and skins back. I use a large bowl under the sieve to make sure I can run everything through at once. 

When the juice has gone through the sieve, I then stir the pulp and the skins with a flexible spatula. Push the pulp through the sieve, leaving the skins and seeds behind.  I really like getting as much pulp as I can because it makes the sauce thicker and meatier. 

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The Tomato Sauce Recipe

Return the juice and pulp back to your pot. Make sure there are no skins hanging on to the sides of your pot from the first simmer. Bring your sauce back to a simmer again. 

Now we get to make this sauce Ah-mazing! Add the following ingredients:

• 2 TBSP EVOO
• 1 TBSP good quality Balsamic
• 2 TBSP minced Garlic
• 2 or 3 TBSP Brown Sugar (you may adjust based upon the sweetness of the tomatoes you use)
• 1 tsp finely ground black pepper
• 4 tsp salt
• 1 TBSP EACH Basil, Parsley, Thyme.

I love oregano on practically everything, but I don’t add oregano to my tomato sauce while first cooking it. Oregano could make the sauce bitter during canning. Instead add it to the sauce after re-opening the jar when getting the sauce ready for dinner that evening.

Simmer your sauce until you have it down to a good, thick consistency, stirring regularly.  Stirring is import; the thicker pulp will drop to the bottom of the pot and burn if you neglect stirring.  

Thickening the sauce

The sauce should lose about a quarter (or more!) in volume since you strained it.  Thickening could take 1-2 hours.  Once during that time, use your immersion  Hand Blender to help mix everything together.  The blender will not only break down the herbs, it will also increase the elasticity of the sauce. Just a few minutes will break up the pulp and make the sauce more consistently thick. Don’t over blend though, as this will change the flavor and texture of the sauce.  A glassy consistency is probably fine for barbecue sauce, but it is not OK for pasta sauce!

** TIP. Use your blender only after the herbs have had 15 minutes or so to soften and steep in the sauce. This way, they will be softer and more likely to break down and release their flavor into the sauce. If you blend immediately after adding the herbs, you will just be pushing them around. This is particularly important if using dried herbs.

If you are canning this sauce, you should start your water bath canner when you see it start to thicken. This will give it enough time so that it is ready when the sauce is fully thickened.

If you are having pasta for dinner, you are done! Lucky you!  You should have at least two large jars of sauce.

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Acidification

The USDA confirms that tomato canning in a water bath canner is safe. One thing to know is that tomatoes need to be sufficiently acidic to be safe in a water bath canner. Water Bath Canners don’t reach as high of temperatures as a pressure canner. If you are unable to test the acidity, the USDA recommends adding citric acid to each jar you make. Here is a link to the USDA acidification chart.

Some tomatoes are more acidic than others, and when you pick them affects the acidity as well. Garden heirloom tomatoes are generally acidic. But, many varieties are only borderline acidic. Therefore you must add 1T lemon juice or citric acid to each jar for canning. Adding the lemon juice will ensure your acidity is high enough to prevent any spoilage in the jar after canning, no matter what type of tomato you are using.

If you are using hybrid varieties or store bought tomatoes, add 2T lemon juice. Hybrids generally have less acidity than heirloom varieties. What’s more, store bought tomatoes are usually picked early before fully ripening. (If your tomatoes taste bland, that’s usually a sign of low acidity combined with low sugar).

Canning Your Tomato Sauce

If you have never hot water bath canned before, read about that first. The process is pretty straightforward. This tomato sauce recipe doesn’t go into all the canning detail you need to know if you’re not already regularly canning. Go ahead and check out the USDA Canning site if you need to – I’ll wait.

For this recipe, you’ll need either 2 @ 32 oz canning jars OR 2 @ 24 oz canning jars plus one 16 oz jar. Also get your lids and bands ready.  Sometimes, depending upon the batch size or how much I thicken the sauce, I have extra for another pint. I usually sterilize an extra pint jar just in case. If the sauce doesn’t fill up the last jar to within a half-inch headspace, just put it in the fridge to use right away.

Sterilize and fill the jars as normal. Add your lemon juice for proper acidity. Wipe the rims and top with the lids and bands to finger-tight. Process your sauce in your hot water bath canner for 30-35 minutes, adjusting for altitude. If you are at sea-level, you can process for 30 minutes.

Enjoy this recipe!

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More about tomatoes…