There are countless ways to preserve tomatoes. It seems as though everyone's grandmother had a special family recipe, and yet so many recipes are so similar. Regardless of which method you choose to preserve your tomatoes, stewed, juiced, sauced, pickled, or dehydrated, have some fun with it! In this blog, I will share my experiences, good and bad, with canning tomato sauce for the first time.
This summer, I was gifted 4 pallets of grape tomatoes. This equaled just over 45 pounds of tomatoes I now had to figure out how to utilize! The clock was ticking, as some of the tomatoes had already begun to go bad and I did not have enough space in my fridge to store them. I began searching recipes online and asking friends about their recipes. I finally settled on two ways to preserve this wonderful gift of tomatoes. I decided I would make tomato sauce, and pickled tomatoes with garlic and basil. Being my first time canning tomatoes, I was feeling rather ambitious. Looking back now, I think I had a moment of my brain not properly functioning as I clearly did not think this project through. I was about to make a full recipe of tomato sauce from grape tomatoes. I was not prepared for, nor was I aware of, the full scope of work that lay before me on this great adventure.
This blog will definitely show how I am still on my own journey to learn more about preservation. I may share things I have learned and things I have put into practice, but this in no way makes me an expert or super experienced! I am just like you. I am learning, and I definitely make mistakes along the way! What I want to encourage is, don't be afraid to try!
4 pallets of gifted grape tomatoes
Tomato Sauce:
I used the Ball recipe for tomato basil sauce, I will include at link to the recipe at the end of this blog.
I began by weighing out the tomatoes I needed for the recipe of tomato sauce. This part was perhaps the easiest of my new experience. Each container had the weight already stamped on it, so I just needed to figure out how many containers I needed. I washed the tomatoes and picked out any that were not in prime condition. I also had to score the skin of the tomatoes so the skin could come off a bit easier during the cooking stage. Yes, each one. It was at this point I realized, I may have underestimated my project, yet, I continued on.
The tomatoes needed for one batch of sauce
Cooking the tomatoes to release the skins
Since these were small tomatoes, and peeling them individually was out of the question, I cooked the tomatoes, onions and some of the basil down in a large pot, using a potato masher to help crush the tomatoes. Once they were cooked and mashed thoroughly, I began the next step.
I now had to take the cooked tomatoes and blend them. Ideally I would have used a food mill, however, I do not have one. So, I used my handy blender! Note: always remove the center of the lid and cover with a towel so the hot contents can vent, otherwise you will have a fountain of molten tomato lava all over your kitchen! Lesson learned. Once the tomato mix was blended, I could run it through my sieve. This removes any bits of skin and any remaining seeds that were not blended. Doing this helps have a smooth sauce and makes sure the density is correct for the processing time for the recipe.
Blending the sauce
Using a sieve to remove the solid bits
The solid bits and the smooth sauce
I will be honest, by the time I was done with this step, I put the tomato sauce in the fridge for the night and began the next step the following morning. I really was not aware of the amount of time that went into making tomato sauce, It makes me really respect those who make countless jars of homemade sauce every year. Also, I really did not realize the size of the tomato would make it take way longer. I will not be using grape tomatoes for sauce ever again!
The next morning, I put the tomato sauce in my stock pot. It appeared to fit, however, once again, I was not exactly functioning on all cylinders this particular day, or perhaps my coffee was not as strong as it should have been. When the tomato sauce begun to heat up, it seemed to grow a bit. To avoid a potential overflow of tomato sauce, I pulled out my larger stock pot and gave it more room to move around in. I added the spices and the rest of the basil and let it cook down. The recipe stated to reduce it down by about half to have a more concentrated tomato sauce, and less of a tomato juice consistency. Again, I was not prepared for how long this took. Almost 3 hours later, I decided it had reduced enough and moved on to canning it. You can see in the photo the line in the pot where I began cooking and where it reduced to in 3 hours. *The next time I make tomato sauce, I will use my large electric roaster so I won't have to babysit a stock pot of tomato sauce to prevent it from scorching.
The tomato sauce quickly filled the pot once it was heated!
Reducing the sauce in larger pot
I jarred it in quart jars and processed for the recommended time. Overall, I was rather pleased with the reward of my efforts. Knowing there is tomato sauce on my pantry shelf, that I know exactly what is in it, feels special.
I won't lie, it took just over 6 hours to make 5 quarts of sauce. The time would have been less if larger tomatoes would have been used I'm sure.
I will be making more tomato sauce, however the lessons I learned with this experiment were:
- Use Roma or other larger tomatoes, not grape tomatoes
- Begin with a large enough stock pot or...
- Use electric roaster to reduce sauce
- Use extra dry seasonings to taste as this was a bit bland
- Make sure the blender is vented!
- Start the process first thing in the morning to allow plenty of time for the entire process
- Don't be afraid to mess up a bit!
The finished product
**Since preparing this recipe of tomato sauce, I have learned a much easier way to prepare the tomatoes, and make the reduction time much less! I did another batch, this time, I froze the tomatoes in large bags after removing the cores. I used regular Roma tomatoes for this time. Once thawed, the skins just fall off, so no need for blanching them or cooking them down like I did. Another great benefit to freezing them, much of the water from the tomato will separate and I was able to drain much of the water off before ever cooking. This really helped make the entire process go much faster!
Pickled Tomatoes with Garlic and Basil
My husband and I love pickles, and we both do not care for rosemary. I saw a recipe for pickled tomatoes with garlic and rosemary and I began thinking, "Why can't I use basil instead of rosemary?" Well, I could, so I did! I think that this recipe has become my favorite experiment I have done so far! These tomatoes are great for snacking from straight from the jar, or blended into a marinara sauce for pasta or for dipping fried ravioli! Yum!!
I did not get photos of my process on the pickled tomatoes, however, I did make a printable recipe card for you!
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