BASIC TOMATO SAUCE

BASIC TOMATO SAUCE

PRESERVING METHOD:
Waterbath Canning

YOU WILL NEED:
Tomatoes, cored
Citric Acid or bottled lemon juice
Salt (optional)
Dried herbs (optional)
Dried basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and Italian seasoning mixes are excellent seasonings for this sauce.

DIRECTIONS:
Prepare canner, jars and lids
Wash and sort tomatoes, removing any bruised or discolored product. Quarter 6 tomatoes and place in a large stainless steel sauce saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Using a potato masher, crush tomatoes to release juices, stirring constantly. While maintaining a boil and stirring to prevent burning, quarter additional tomatoes, adding them to the saucepan as you work. Make sure the mixture continues to boil vigorously while you add, stir and crush the remaining tomatoes. When all tomatoes have been added, boil, stirring occasionally, until tomatoes are soft and juicy, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
Working in batches, press tomatoes through a fine sieve, food mill or Victorio strainer to remove skins and seeds. Discard skins and seeds.
Return mixture to saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium-high and boil until volume is reduced by at least one-third for a thin sauce. For a thicker sauce, cook until reduced by half.


Before filling each jar with tomato sauce, add lemon juice or citric acid to the hot jar in the quantity specified below:


Pint:
• ¼ tsp Citric Acid or 1 Tbsp bottled lemon juice

Quart:
• ½ tsp Citric Acid or 2 Tbsp bottled lemon juice

Add salt (optional) in the quantity specified below:
• Pint: ½ tsp


• Quart: 1 tsp
Add dried herbs (optional) to each jar.
Ladle hot sauce into prepared jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace, if necessary, by adding hot sauce. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water. Bring to a boil and process pint jars for 35 minutes and quart jars for 40 minutes.

For each quart jar of thin sauce, you'll need about 5lbs of tomatoes.

TIPS FOR MAKING HOMEMADE TOMATO SAUCE
For a thin sauce, you'll need an average of 35 lbs of tomatoes to produce 7 quart jars of sauce. For a thick sauce, you'll need an average of 46 lbs to yield 7 quart jars. For the best-quality product and vacuum seal, pack tomato sauce one jar at a time. For each jar, add the lemon juice or citric acid, then the salt and dried herbs, if using. Then ladle in hot sauce as indicated in Step 8 and place the jar in the canner. Repeat until all jars are filled.
Dried basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme and Italian seasoning mixes are excellent seasonings for this sauce.