Tomato Sauce: the Ultimate Way to Store Your Tomatoes in Ten Steps

 Tomato Sauce: 

The Ultimate Way to Store Your Tomatoes 

In Ten Steps

After spending the season caring for your tomato plants and picking dozens and dozens of plump ripe red tomatoes.  There is a point where there are too many tomatoes to keep up with and there is only one solution and that is can tomato sauce!  What makes a quick easy dinner like spaghetti even better, then homemade, delicious tomato sauce.

By the time tomatoes are ready, the onions will be as well.  Fresh onions will be a tasty addition to any tomato sauce recipe, but is crucial in this one.

 Recipe 60-75 Tomatoes.  

We are always adjusting our recipe based on how many tomatoes we have available when we are ready to can.

The tomatoes that have green like in the below picture, do not peel as well as the red ripe tomatoes.  If you have plenty of tomatoes, be choosy.

Step 1: Scald your tomatoes by dropping them in boiling water and removing them after 60 seconds.  This makes it easier to peel the tomatoes.  During this step we peel the tomato and squeeze out the extra juice so that the sauce isn't too watery. We put the peeled and chopped tomatoes into the large pot.

 

Step 2: Chop up and Saute Onion: 4 large onions and 1/2 cup of olive oil. 

Step 3: Add the garlic 4 TB of minced garlic with the onion and olive oil and saute until caramelized, but before it turns brown.

Step 4: Add the caramelized onion and garlic to the pot of tomatoes.  Start cooking on medium, and stir often so that the bottom doesn't burn.

Step 5: Add three 12oz cans of tomato paste. Mix well; do not let the sauce at the bottom of the pot burn.  We use tomato paste because it helps increase the concentration of the sauce.

Step 6: Add your spices to the sauce as it starts to boil and the tomatoes soften into the consistency of nice thick sauce.  Add 6 TBs of sugar, 2 TBs of salt, 2 TBs of oregano, and 1 TB of pepper.  Keep stirring that sauce to the very bottom.  Burning the sauce at the bottom of this large pot will ruin the taste of the entire pot. (Trust me, I've done it before)  

Step 7: Taste your sauce and add salt/pepper/oregano to desired taste.  Turn the heat down and simmer at this point while you're gathering your canning materials.  

Step 8: Prepare for canning.  Boil the lids and have clean jars ready.  Pour the sauce up the the lip of the jar; within 1-2 inches of the top.

Step 9: After the sauce is in the cans, add warm/hot water (similar to the temperature of the hot glass of the tomato sauce jars) to the canning pot.  There should be a metal rack at the bottom of the pot so that the cans are not sitting right on the bottom of the pot.  Bring to a boil and boil x 20 minutes.  

Step 10: Remove the cans from the heat carefully and put them on a towel and wrap them with the towel.  This allows the tomato sauce cans to cool slowly and seal properly.

In 10 steps, you have gone from a couple boxes of tomatoes with a couple week shelf-life to 6  quarts of delicious tomato sauce with a couple years of shelf-life.