How do I make plain tomato sauce?

[Binkalette]

I am growing Roma tomatoes this year, and I would like to make them into sauce to can and use when needed. How do I go about making them into sauce? Do I use the whole tomato or just juice them or what? Thanks for any help!

[mtmickey]

You can do it any way you like. I use the whole skinless tomato, cook them down and add spices. Quite simple. I highly recommend using a splatter guard when cooking large amounts of tomatoes.

[Dillbert]

for maximum flexibility I cook down all the "excess" tomatoes.

big pot, wash, clean up, remove stem, etc., quarter, plunk them in the pot on low heat - skin seeds - the whole tomato. I add just a little salt, not much. basically convert them to "stewed tomato" - put into quart size freezer zip lock bags, freeze the bags flat on a baking sheet so they stack nicely.

the theory of flexibility says:

you can thaw the prepped tomato and refine it into whatever you want / need. run it thru a food mill for a fine puree, cook it down further, add green pepper, add onion, add whatever spices work for the 'dish under fixing' - etc. I find it difficult to plan&project how much of each tomato prep "sauce" I might need - that's why I do just the basic prep and work on processing them further on an as needed basis.

[Kisal]

I basically follow Dillbert's plan, adding little to no seasoning when I make the sauce, so I can season it at the time I use it in a recipe.

I don't include the skin or seeds, though, because I don't like them in anything I make that uses tomato sauce. The skins are easy to "slip" by dipping the tomato into boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds, then dropping it into ice water. The skin will slide right off when you pick the tomato out of the ice water.

I remove the seeds with the small end of a melon baller.

[Ozark Lady]

I dip them in hot water, then plunge in cold water, to make the skins let go. Then I put them in a colander and let the liquids drain off. Sometimes I poke the tomatoes to help the liquids drain off.
I strain the liquids through cheesecloth and boil it to reduce it.

While it boils down, I mash up the rest of the tomatoes, and then I press them through a strainer, and the pulp falls apart, and goes through, the seeds and any skins I missed don't. If I find they are going through, I use smaller weave cheesecloth or tea towel to really strain them close.

Once, I have enough to fill a really heavy pot, I put it on to cook. (Heavier pots don't stick as bad.) Tomato pulp catches on the sides and will burn easily, so don't add the pulp to the liquid until you are ready to be very handy to stir alot. Reducing the liquids before adding the pulp really cuts the time that you have to stir.

Once I am happy with the sauce, then I decide what it will be... just tomato sauce, or if I want to make it into something else. Some I do one way, and some another. But, most of it should be plain, so you can use it anyway you want to. If you don't add any low acid foods to the tomatoes then you can can using a boiling water bath method. If you add onions, peppers etc. Then you need to freeze or pressure can your sauce.

[Gary350]

Over the past 30+ years I have profected my own quick, easy, fast method. I also got a lot of tips from my Grandmother.

I start with 50 lbs of ripe tomatoes. It is to slow to fool around with 10 or 20 lbs of tomatoes at a time.

I inspect the tomatoes pretty fast and don't waste any time trying to salvage part of a tomato by cutting off bad places set it aside we will eat it for dinner. I cut the tomatoes in half and fill a 3 gallon cooking pot about half full. I turn on the stove and let it start getting hot while finish filling the pot.

In the mean time while it is getting hot I keep inspecting tomatoes, slice them in half and filling more pots. I fill the pots with in 2" of the top and let it continue to heat up while I fill another pot with tomatoes. When the first pot starts to boil it needs to cook a few minutes so I can crush all the tomatoes with the potato masher to get out the juice and pulp. Next I dip out the cooked tomatoes to a sieve. Sometimes I have 3 or 4 pots cooking at the same time.

I get an assembly line going this makes if fast and easy. Cut tomatoes put them in pot, mash and dip liquid to sieve. Pour liquid into mason jars to 1/2 inch of the top. I do this over and over I can fill a 100 pint mason jars in just a few hours work.

I like seeds. If you don't like seeds then you need to use a smaller sieve. Every thing goes threw my sieve except the skins. I never waste my time removing skins with boiling water anymore that is totally unnecessary.

I have 2 pressure cookers and probably 7 or 8 pots I can use as water bath canners or the pressure cook method. I can cook 25 to 36 jars at a time using all 4 eyes on the stove. If I start right after breakfast I can be finished an hour or so after lunch. I let the jars cool on the counter top all day. Next morning I wash the jars, date and label them then put them in the pantry.

Nice thing about mason jars is, no freezer burn, no electricity required to keep the freezer cold, I don't have to own a freezer, jars cost a lot less than a freezer, don't need to buy zip lock freezer bags, it is much faster and easier to deal with that freezer bags or boxes, jars are reuseable, I only have to buy 10 dozen mason jar seals every summer to do 120 jars.

Some years I can taco sauce, enchilada sauce, tomato sauce, tomato juice, soup, chili, beans, jam, pie filling, and more.

Food in mason jars will keep good in the pantry for 7, 8 years. I try to rotate and use them up before they get older than 5 years. I do a count to see what needs to be replaced each summer. I canned Blackberry Jam, Blackberry Pie filling, Blackberries, Blackberry Pancake syrup last summer so I won't be canning anymore blackberries for probaby 5 more years. My apply supply is low so this year I will work on that this summer. I made 48 bottles of Blackberry wine 4 years ago I only have 1 bottle of that left.

[MaryDel]

I rinse my tomatoes, cut the bigger ones in half and throw smaller ones in whole in the blender. I blend them on high until liquefied. I pour off 7/8 of the liquid into a steel meshed collander and work it through the mesh with the bottom of a thick glass. I leave some of the tomato liquid in the blender to make the next batch easier to processs. I repeat the process taking the seeds and skins out of the collander every second batch. I save the skins and seeds until the end and re-run them through the blender one last time. I cook it down for about four hours. This is the base for all of my tomato sauces. It's like a loose paste. It's the fastest, easiest way to process a pile of tomatoes that I know of.


For sauces with chunks, I'll just add some pieces of skinless seedless tomatoes. Blanching, skinning coring and deseeding is what is time consuming.