Got Tomatoes? Make Homemade Jarred Sauce (2024)

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Canning Food

Molly Watson

An award-winning food writer and cookbook author, Molly Watson has created more than 1,000 recipes focused on local, seasonal ingredients.

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Updated on 02/20/24

Tested by

Diana Rattray

Tested byDiana Rattray

Southern-cuisine expert and cookbook author Diana Rattray has created more than 5,000 recipes and articles in her 20 years as a food writer.

Learn about The Spruce Eats'Editorial Process

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Prep: 30 mins

Cook: 50 mins

Sterilize Jars and Process Time: 50 mins

Total: 2 hrs 10 mins

Servings: 32 servings

Yield: 4 pints

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When you end up with a surplus of fresh tomatoes, one of the best things to make is canned tomato sauce. This basic canned (or jarred) tomato sauce contains just tomatoes, salt, and lemon juice, which assures a proper acidic environment for canning. Feel free to add any additional flavors (such as herbs) laterwhen you are ready to use the sauce. Fleshier plum tomatoes, like Roma or globe-shaped Early Girl tomatoes, are great to use since they have less juice, requiring less time to cook down the sauce.

You will need four pint-sized jars with sealable lids for canning; the lids and jars need to be sterilized, which can be done by boiling in a large pot for 10 minutes. Let them dry before filling. Canned tomato sauce will remain good for up to a year, stored in a cool, dark place.

Got Tomatoes? Make Homemade Jarred Sauce (2)

What You'll Need to Make This Canned Tomato Sauce Recipe

A Waterbath Canner

Handy Dandy Canning Tools

A Set of Canning Jars and Lids

"This was a tasty tomato sauce made with few ingredients. It does take time, but it is fairly easy. Tomato preparation (boiling, peeling, and removing seeds) takes about 30 minutes. Because some tomatoes are less acidic than others, the bottled lemon juice is added and the water bath processing is 40 minutes for pint jars." —Diana Rattray

Got Tomatoes? Make Homemade Jarred Sauce (6)

A Note From Our Recipe Tester

Ingredients

8 pounds red tomatoes (fully ripe or overripe)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup lemon juice (bottled or jarred, not fresh), divided

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.
Rinse the tomatoes and pat them dry. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cut a small "X" in the bottom of each tomato and blanch them in the boiling water for about 30 seconds.
Use a slotted spoon to transfer the tomatoes to an ice bath to cool.
Lift tomatoes out of the ice bath, slip off their skins, cut the tomatoes in half crosswise, squeeze out the seeds, and coarsely chop the tomatoes.
Put the coarsely chopped tomatoes in a pot with the salt and bring just to a boil. Reduce the heat to maintain a steady but gentle simmer and cook, stirring now and again, until the mixture is reduced by about a third, about 45 minutes. If at any point the mixture starts sticking to the pot, lower the heat and stir more often.
Meanwhile, bring a canning kettle full of water to a boil. To sterilize the jars and lids, place them in the pot and boil for at least 10 minutes.
Then, using a jar lifter, transfer them to a cooling rack to let them dry. (They will remain somewhat hot after they are dry.)
Put 1 tablespoon of the lemon juice in each of the 4 jars.
Transfer the hot tomato sauce to the hot jars (a wide-mouth canning funnel works well), leaving about 1/2 inch of space at the top.
Screw on the lids, put the jars in a canning rack, and lower them into the boiling water in the canning kettle. Process (boil) for 40 minutes. There needs to be at least an inch of water covering the jars, so keep an eye on the water level, adding more boiling water if needed.
Remove the jars and let them cool. Store them in a cool, dark place (a cupboard or pantry works great) until you're ready to use some tomato sauce.

Alternative Way to Peel and Seed Tomatoes

Instead of blanching and then peeling and seeding the tomatoes, you can remove the skin and seeds using a food mill. Roughly chop the whole tomatoes and run them through the food mill; the skin and seeds will remain on top while the tomato pulp accumulates below.

Recipe Variations

Replace the lemon juice with 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid per pint jar or 1/2 teaspoon per quart jar.
Smooth Tomato Sauce: Chop the tomatoes and bring them to a boil in a large pot. Cook for 5 minutes, then put them through a food mill; discard the seeds, core pieces, and skin. Pour the pulp and juice back into the pot and bring to a boil; reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 40 minutes, or until the desired thickness is reached. Fill the sterilized jars and process as instructed.
Pressure Canner Processing: In a dial gauge pressure canner, process at 11 pounds pressure. In a weighted gauge pressure canner, process at 10 pounds pressure. Pints or quarts: 15 minutes.

Why Add the Lemon Juice?

Safe canning requires that the food has a guaranteed level of acidity, as the acid is what preserves the food and wards off bacteria (such as the type that causes botulism). Some of today's tomato varieties have low levels of acid, requiring an additional ingredient. In this recipe, the addition of bottled lemon juice lowers the pH level, creating the proper acidic environment for canning. Acidic ingredients, or foods with an added acid, are safe to can using a water bath, while all other foods need to be pressure canned.

Use 1 tablespoon of bottled lemon juice per pint jar, or 2 tablespoons per quart jar.

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Nutrition Facts (per serving)
21	Calories
0g	Fat
5g	Carbs
1g	Protein

Show Full Nutrition Label

Nutrition Facts
Servings: 32
Amount per serving
Calories	21
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 0g	0%
Saturated Fat 0g	0%
Cholesterol 0mg	0%
Sodium 72mg	3%
Total Carbohydrate 5g	2%
Dietary Fiber 1g	5%
Total Sugars 3g
Protein 1g
Vitamin C 16mg	79%
Calcium 12mg	1%
Iron 0mg	2%
Potassium 271mg	6%
*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

Recipe Tags:

Tomato
italian
fall
sauces

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