We go through a lot of tomato sauce in our household. My husband could eat spaghetti and tomato sauce several nights a week and then be up for a ziti or lasagna. So, when I started gardening and trying to grow things organically for my family, it was only natural to start thinking about canning our own tomato sauce. Besides knowing where the sauce came from, it is also nice to get further away from cans that can cause health problems. While we do have a lot of tomato plants, they don’t all ripen at the same time and I’m not going to purchase a bunch of tomatoes since I’m already growing them. What to do? Take the easy approach that will actually get more people into making their own! Freeze your tomatoes as they ripen!
That’s right, as your tomatoes ripen, toss them in freezer safe bags. Then, at the end of the season (or in my case sometime in the winter when I am bored and I want something simmering on the range for a while) take all of your tomatoes and process them at the same time! My theory is there is no reason to go through this process several times. Why do that to your free time, your kitchen, and your sanity? The first time I canned sauce, there were so many resources out there but nothing that showed me step by step in how I knew I wanted to make my sauce. So, I did all of the leg work and now spell it out for you so you don’t have to! I can a basic tomato sauce, without any seasonings to it so that I can adjust at the time of cooking later on. If you prefer to add your seasonings before sealing, then do so when you simmer your sauce to your desired thickness.
Also, I use a large pot. The same pot I cook my lobsters in. I don’t have a special canner, just something that is deep enough to cover the jars with water. I also don’t have a canning rack. I have the little tong kit that includes a funnel and a magnet stick to place the lids on and that’s it. Very simple, inexpensive operation here that still yields results!
So, step by step on what to do (I use a Food Mill to save more time, but if you don’t have one you will want to parboil your tomatoes and then remove the skins. There are directions on this in the links below):
1. Take frozen tomatoes and place them in a large pot (do not use aluminum as that will react with the acidity of the tomatoes) and bring to a slow boil, then allow the tomatoes to simmer for roughly 20 minutes. The skins will start to peel off and the tomatoes will soften.
Life jackets are not required for this step! 🙂Â
2.Place your food mill over a large bowl and in small batches, taken your softened tomatoes and process them through your food mill. Between batches, you will need to clean the food mill from the seeds and skins.
3. Add the processed tomato juice that has gone through the food mill back into your large pot. Bring to a boil and then allow to simmer until your desired consistency has been reached. Volume reduced by 1/3 is good for thin sauce and 1/2 for a thicker sauce.
Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, spinal or brain tumours are conditions that can result in impotence. 5. robertrobb.com levitra purchase canada Studies are then conducted on these to discover the benefits that people experience after sildenafil discount having sex. Alexander Shulgin is a well-known research who presented pharmacological explorations and syntheses of hundred different substances free viagra in australia in his books PiHKAL and TiHKAL (his co-author was Ann Shulgin). All you need to do is chew and swallow the pill as discount cialis 20mg it gets dissolved in few minutes or maximum an hour.
4. While your tomato sauce is thickening, go ahead and sanitize your jars. In a large pot of water, add your clean jars and bring to a boil. Allow to boil for a couple of minutes. Do the same for your lids.
5. Leave your lids in the hot water, but remove the jars. Fill the large pot or canner back up with water and bring to a boil so that you can process the jars once your sauce has been added.
6. Once your sauce is the desired thickness, using a funnel, pour the sauce into each jar (make sure the jars are hot when you fill them to avoid breakage from a temperature change), filling to 1/2″away from the top. In each quart jar, add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and for a pint jar, add 1 tablespoon.
7. Wipe the surface of each jar clean and top with hot lid and band. Close snugly, but not too tightly. Add the jars to the boiling water of your large pot or canner and allow to process for 35 minutes (pints) to 45 minutes (quarts). Make sure that the jars are immersed in water and covered by at least 1 inch of water.
8. Remove jars and allow for them to cool in a spot where they will not be moved or bumped. As the lids seal, you will hear that lovely popping sound. Check all of the lids after 24 hours to ensure a good seal. The lids should not flex back and forth.
I hope this helps and makes canning a little less daunting. I love freezing my tomatoes so that I don’t have to make a mess of my kitchen several times for small batches and so I don’t have to work in a hot kitchen canning tomatoes on a nice summer day. Why not save it for a cool, rainy day in the fall or winter instead?
Sources: Ball Canning , Pick Your Own, eHow
34 comments
July 22, 2013 at 6:53 am
LOL, love the lifejacket! Very essential in the canning process 🙂
September 2, 2013 at 10:51 pm
I don’t make tomato sauce but I do freeze my tomatoes. I dunk my tomatoes in boiling water for 2-3 minutes to loosen the skin then put them into a cold water bath. After pulling the skins off, I dice them up into small chunks saving all juices in a bowl. I then put 1 1/2 cup of diced tomatoes with juice into a quart freezer bag letting out all the air. Then put them in the freezer to use in recipes that call for diced tomatoes.
August 2, 2014 at 9:23 pm
Well I’ve been “doing” tomatoes for a very long time now but these buggers (not Romas) were nearly impossible to get pealed. I was getting very tired and decided to throw them in the freezer. I knew I could get the skins off fast later. When I thawed them there was a lot of thin juice (I wasn’t prepared for that) and the flesh was icky soft. Oops now what do I do? Aha, Google to the rescue! And (ask.com). And there you are with this wonderful blog on frozen tomatoes. Thanx for all your help. I got 5 qts. of toms and 1 qt. of thin tom juice with celery (the basis of soup). Yea!
August 3, 2014 at 7:47 pm
I’m so glad that the post was helpful for you!
November 23, 2014 at 1:03 pm
I cut tomatoes before freezing. After thawing, the skins come right off without blanching . I was amazed and with a lot cooler kitchen. Next time I will try the life jacket just for a hoot.
November 23, 2014 at 1:15 pm
Even quicker! I like it!
August 22, 2015 at 11:24 am
Yes, slicing the small slits in the skin before you freeze works great. Skin comes rite off when they thaw. One less step.
July 24, 2015 at 9:08 pm
I’m growing a dozen San Marzano tomato plants are they’re just slowly starting to ripen, but not all at once. I wanted to freeze them as you suggest, but was confused about the boiling first. Right off the vine do you boil and skin them first, then freeze them? Or can you pick them and plop them right in the freezer? Boiling one or two tomatoes at a time seems an awful waste.
July 26, 2015 at 7:46 am
I toss my frozen tomatoes, skin on, in a freezer bag and cook and can them all at once. I do this because I have a food mill and that can remove any skins off of the tomatoes. If you do not have a food mill, there are directions below the post on how to par-boil. You can still do this with frozen tomatoes though.
June 28, 2016 at 4:55 pm
Tomorrow I will attempt to can sauce from tomatoes that I froze from last year’s garden, thanks to this post. I have been putting it off because I have never canned anything and was terrified I would mess it up. But your explanation was perfect for a newbie like me! Thank you so much!!
June 29, 2016 at 9:13 pm
I hope the process goes well for you! Typically, you don’t want to leave them, or anything, in the freezer that long because it will effect flavor.
September 12, 2021 at 8:01 pm
What about if they are in the deep freezer.??
Last fall I froze lots of my tomatoes. Blanched, peeled, and diced.
I tried using them in soups and they just didn’t taste as good as canned.
I haven’t had the heart to throw them out after all that hard work last year.
Just saw this post and I’m debating if I want to
Try this with them or just pitch them and count it loss and learning experience.
September 14, 2021 at 7:07 am
After a year, the flavor is going to be sacrificed. I freeze during the summer so that in early fall I can make one large batch. It’s worth a try, one I’d give, but you may need to add additional seasoning or perhaps bolster the taste with a couple cans of store-bought.
July 25, 2016 at 4:46 pm
Love the info. Only have eight tomatoe plants and tired of canning small batches. Gonna freeze and can. Love the life jacket.
September 13, 2016 at 9:27 am
I’m wondering why it is that we are to peel the skins off the tomatoes before making sauce. Could I just blend everything up including the skins and seeds? Will that affect the taste or acidity?
September 13, 2016 at 9:51 am
No matter how much you blend, the skin just wont blend that well and the bits of skin aren’t that appealing in the sauce. If you want to avoid parboiling and removing skins, you can get a foodmill.
September 13, 2016 at 12:34 pm
Thanks so much!!
October 10, 2016 at 8:52 pm
How much water do you add when boiling the frozen tomatoes?
October 11, 2016 at 9:15 am
I just add water until the tomatoes are about covered.
November 5, 2016 at 8:40 am
Ok, maybe I’m over thinking this but instead of actually canning the tomato sauce can I freeze it instead?
November 9, 2016 at 3:58 pm
You can absolutely freeze the tomato sauce. I like to have it jarred and ready to go without thawing so that’s why I can.
August 4, 2018 at 6:24 pm
we canned our tomato sauce. can we thaw it out and restore it in our pantry? they are in mason jars
October 14, 2018 at 1:58 pm
Thank you so much for this simple recipe! We had about 12 Roma tomato plants and they did great! I think we yielded about 15 or 20 lbs. They just kept growing and growing! I made the sauce in 2 different batches as I needed to clear out the freezer space for hunting! Such a great recipe! Thank you again!
April 2, 2020 at 3:17 pm
Please help. I froze (in my fridge freezer) spagetti sauce that I made with tomatoes and hamburg. It’s now about 7 months old and I want to eat it. Will it be okay?
April 2, 2020 at 3:18 pm
Please help. I froze (in my fridge freezer) spagetti sauce that I made with tomatoes and hamburg. It’s now about 7 months old and I want to eat it. Will it be okay?
If I did, you didn’t answer me. The difference is I added hamburg to my tomato sauce.
April 4, 2020 at 6:33 pm
I would check the FDA site on recommendations when food safety comes in mind. I wouldn’t personally eat it if meat were inside because of quality of flavor but I am also a risk taker and will cook it and see how it is 🙂 Good luck
June 16, 2020 at 2:25 pm
I froze a huge batch of homemade tomato sauce, is it safe to can it now?
June 17, 2020 at 9:05 pm
I freeze the tomatoes and then can or freeze the sauce and then simply defrost when I want to use. I would check Google to find the safe answer to that.
October 30, 2021 at 8:02 pm
Your blog post saved me so much time this season! I had 12 Amish paste and Biltmore tomato plants that produced more than 200 lbs of tomatoes. I’m sure we’ll never have another year like this. We picked them as they started to turn and let them ripen off the vine, then cored and quartered them and froze them in gallon bags. I ran them through my Kitchen Aid food mill and cooked them into sauce that we canned in two, marathon sessions. I think someone else noted that the tomatoes were very mushy when they thawed, although the skins slipped right off which was a bonus. They were just sort of spongy. The fresh tomatoes that I ran through the mill the same day I did the frozen were so much meatier and didn’t require as much cooking time to reduce and thicken, as you’d expect. My husband wondered if we could run them through the food mill to preserve the juice/pulp when they’re fresh and freeze that to cook down as sauce later. Has anyone ever tried that? Any recommendations?
July 31, 2020 at 2:30 pm
After I sanitize the bottles I put them in a low oven to keep them warm
August 12, 2020 at 4:08 pm
do you use a recipe?
August 12, 2020 at 9:45 pm
Just got schooled on a canning FB page for stating that I make salsa using frozen tomatoes for the past 27 years with a low pH of 4.5 or less. This equates to roughly 2600 pints over those years. Wonder how many test pints the NHFP ran on previously frozen tomatoes. Willing to bet not as many
Thx
September 15, 2021 at 1:48 pm
Recipe for sauce from frozen tomatoes
September 19, 2021 at 9:26 am
This is not a recipe, but a method to obtain tomato sauce like the plain canned tomato sauce you purchase and then add your own seasonings. Remarkably, I never posted any of my ragu recipes on the blog.