Easy Canned Tomato Sauce
Description
Do you want to can your tomatoes, but you don't have time to stand over the stove, stirring for hours while the sauce cooks down? This recipe can help!
Ingredients
Instructions
Prepare your tomatoes
This part of the project is best started in the morning.
Wash the tomatoes and quarter them, cutting out the stems and any unsightly or damaged parts. Leave the skins on. Puree a batch in a Cuisinart or other food processor, and pour the puree into your crockpot. Puree another batch and do the same. Repeat this process until your crockpot is full, with a cm (about 1/2 inch) headspace.
Cook the tomatoes
Turn the crockpot on high for eight hours, covered. After the first hour, remove the cover to make sure the steam can escape, and stir every now and then. Now leave the crockpot on warm overnight, uncovered.
Prepare your Jars and lids
Sterilize your mason jars, lids, and lid rings. First wash them, then put the lids in a saucepan of water and heat over the stove. Once they've reached boiling, turn off the heat and let the lids and rings sit in the hot water. There are two ways to sterilize the jars: You can put them in a big pot of water and boil them, or you can set them upright in the sink and fill them with boiling water. Fill them to the top, allowing some of the boiling water to run over the sides. Let them stand for a few minutes, then use canning tongs to lift them and pour out the water. Set the jars upside down on a clean cloth.Turn the crockpot on high for eight hours, covered. After the first hour, remove the cover to make sure the steam can escape, and stir every now and then. Now leave the crockpot on warm overnight, uncovered.
Can the sauce
Add your salt and lemon juice to each hot/warm jar, and fill with the sauce, leaving 1 inch headspace. Wipe the rims well, and put the lids on. Screw on the rings, but not too tightly. Add your jars to the canner, making sure you have at least an inch of water covering them. Once the water starts boiling, can them 35 minutes for pints, 40 for quarts. Remove your jars of sauce from the canner, and set them on a towel on a countertop. You should soon start hearing popping sounds, as the jars seal. After the jars are cool, check the seals: the lids should be a little concave. If they aren't, and the lid is bulging out a little, it didn't seal. Don't despair. That's the jar you will use for tonight's or tomorrow's dinner! (You can also freeze a jar that didn't seal. I don't freeze quarts, but pints are ok to freeze. Make sure the jar isn't full - I leave about 1.5-2 inches headspace, to prevent the jar from breaking when the contents expand upon freezing.)
Label your sealed jars and remove the rings before storing.
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It can occasionally happen that a jar breaks in the canner. If you see one floating in the canner, or you see tomato sauce in the water, be careful when removing jars. You don't want to cut yourself! And if you still have another batch to can, you should dump out that hot water and refill your pot. This will cause a delay until you can heat the water to can the next batch, but it's much safer.
