Canning Tomato Juice and Tomato Sauce
ByOkay, we’ve covered the basics of canning…freezing corn…freezing green beans…canning and freezing peaches…making and canning applesauce…
Now lets talk about tomatoes!
Last year, I planted 40…yes FORTY tomato plants. On purpose. Because I’m crazy.
I ended up having SO MANY tomatoes, that by the end of the summer, I had canned almost two years worth of tomato sauce, tomato juice and tomato soup. And, I still had tomatoes! I was begging people to please come pick my tomatoes and take them far, far away from my house.
While canning that many tomatoes was a wonderful thing…I still hadn’t fully recovered from it when it came time to plant tomatoes this year. Therefore, I only planted 20 tomato plants this spring. *cough*
The good thing is…I never have to buy any tomato juice, sauce or soup. Ever. And the home-canned stuff is SO GOOD!!!
Here’s the way I make tomato juice and tomato sauce…
First, you start with bunches and bunches of pretty tomatoes, like these. You can take the skins off and the seeds out if you want to…I pretty much just WASH them. I leave the skin on and and the seeds in…mostly because I’m just too lazy to do otherwise. My family doesn’t know the difference, and you can’t really even tell that the seeds and skin are still there. At all.
Next, I cut the tomatoes into fourths and put them into my blender.
The tomatoes are then blended up until they are liquid.
(Mmm, tomato smoothie anyone?)
After I blend up my tomatoes, they go into a big pot. Obviously this pot was not quite big enough! Filling your pot this full will just about guarantee that your pot will boil over and spill all over your stovetop creating a cooked on tomato mess. (Picture of the boiled over mess not available…because I scooped some out before it boiled over, thank you very much.)
Next, I boil my tomatoes, uncovered, stirring occasionally. After a while it begins to look like this. Once that bubbly froth is just about all gone from the top (about an hour and a half or so after beginning the boiling process), you have made tomato juice, and you’re able to go ahead with the hot water bath process of canning tomato juice.
But, if you want tomato sauce, continue to let it boil for another hour or so. You’ll know your tomato sauce is done “saucing” when most of the watery liquid has evaporated. If you continue to cook it at this point, you will have tomato paste…which is fine…if you want tomato paste.
Can your tomato sauce for 25-30 minutes following the hot water bath instructions here.
Then, you will have tomato juice for yummy veggie soups and such…and tomato sauce for sloppy joes, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, enchilada sauce…and whatever else you use tomato sauce for. (If you want to, you can add your herbs and spices into the sauce while your making it so that you’ve got your spaghetti and pizza sauce already put together in your jars!)
AND, if you’ve got other veggies laying around, like yellow squash or zucchini…throw those in while you’re blending up your tomatoes…and add them to your sauce before you cook it down. No one will ever know!
I have a wonderful recipe for tomato soup that I’ll be sure to share soon!
Yumm-eeee!
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I was wondering if it made a big difference to use 4% vs 5% vinegar in canning recipes? I accidently grabbed the big jug of 4% and didn’t notice when I used it for my salsa. Friends weren’t sure so I thought I’d get your opinion. Also used it for dill and sweet pickles-do I need to worry?
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Laura Reply:
September 11th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
I don’t think it matters either way – your 4% should be fine!
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Do you use an acid when canning? Lemon juice, citric acid, vinegar?
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Laura Reply:
September 11th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
I don’t, because tomatoes are acidic on their own, although I have heard it advised to use lemon juice.
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I just thought I would share that last year I cooked all my apples in a large crock pot and let them cook until they were pretty well cooked through. I then added my other ingredents and canned them. I like the chunckier sauce. What I liked about using the crock pot is I didn’t really have to watch them and the apples never burned.
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I just finished canning some tomato sauce and I realized I forgot to add my lemon juice. Will my sauce be okay for storage or did I just spoil the whole batch?
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Laura Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Your tomato sauce should be just fine! I never add lemon juice to mine because it is very acidic. :)
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Leigh Sabey Reply:
September 25th, 2011 at 8:26 pm
Hi Starla, just so you know…(and I’m sure your tomato sauce is fine)…I madde the same mistake last year. I decided to call my local CSU extension office (experts in home canning safely), and they advised me to throw away all of my beautifully canned tomato sauce because I forgot the lemon juice :(. They said that although tomatoes are usually acidic enough to be safe, they vary quite a bit, and you can’t really be sure. It was VERY painful to throw it out, but I decided to take their advice because I planned to feed the sauce to my young kiddos and didn’t want to risk it. I’m sure yours will be OK but just wanted to share my experience!
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I never add lemon juice either..have canned spaghetti sauce for the past 2 years with great results :) I cook it for 3 1/2 hours,put in jars and bath it for 15 minutes :)
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This is exactly how we do our sauce, except we puree them in a cuisinart. Why buy fiber when you can eat tomato skins? Plus we cook them much longer – sometimes as much as 2-3 days, very slowly, turning it off at night(and covering the pot). Endpoint is the same – thick and not watery. To prevent scorching, we put a steel plate from our woodstove cooktop on top of the gas burner under the pot, to spread the heat. Also, we shorten the evaporation process by dipping out some of the watery liquid (if you push your ladle down in the tomato sauce, you will create a crater that fills with thin but tasty juice). We dip that out into pint jars and can it separately, for soup base. Canning times seem to vary wildly – 10 minutes for tomato juice to 45 for quarts of tomatoes. I figure the sauce is well cooked already and is put into jars still hot – we process for 10-15 minutes and have not had a problem.
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What if the tomato sauce is cold (made yesterday and want to can today) will that work??
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Laura Reply:
September 26th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
You’ll need to heat it again before canning, then it will be perfect!
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Thanks for your tutorial — I’m planning to make a batch tomorrow!
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Am thinking I will use my Foley Food Mill to make the sauce … anyone else done this? I love it for apple sauce and thought it might be one way to avoid the peeling (although now I read that many of you don’t peel .. that’ll be next year) and to get good tomato sauce!
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Kia Reply:
October 21st, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Janet, I’m doing that right now. I used my food mill and now have the sauce simmering on the stove to thicken. My friend makes hers this way and has for years and her sauce is wonderful.
To answer an earlier question, my friend says she’s never used lemon juicke or any other citric acid in her tomato sauce and has done just fine. She has four little ones who have been eating it since day one and no one has ever gotten sick. =)
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Southern New England has not had a frost, so I am busy canning 5 gallons of tomato sauce. I never peel or de-seed, I just cook the snot of it. I don’t use lemon juice either, but do add olives & capers along with peppers, onions, garlic, herbs and celery. I was going to use my food mill, but then ended up with so much sauce, I got lazy and just cooked it a whole extra day. yum.
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I found this page while looking up tomato juice for canning. My grandma (passed away last December) used to can tomato juice every summer and then we’d make soup from it by adding milk and simmering. It was wonderful with just adding a bit of salt and pepper to it. I’ve got tomatoes going in the garden and can’t wait to make it myself this year!
Of course, it’s a miracle we survived if you go by today’s standards… I never paid much attention while she was doing it, but my uncle told me she just hot packed the jars and slapped the lid/seal on and put in the pantry when cool :)
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