Canning Pasta Sauce

Bless those grandmas who used to can routinely out of necessity!

We learned that it’s a lot of work to make pasta sauce! (But totally worth it!)

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Our tomatoes (both the Amish Paste and the Rutgers Tomatoes) are coming in. We have started to can – diced tomatoes, for example – and also freeze them whole.

Of course, we were excited to can pasta sauce. We used this recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation (link). We mostly used the Amish Paste (really like those), but also used the Rutgers Tomatoes, too.

This will not be a guide on how to can pasta sauce – there are so many out there – but we wanted to share our experience. Quite frankly, it was just a beautiful process! The tomatoes were so pretty.

Skins slip off so easily when blanched. Notice the little “X” cut into the bottom of each one. A dip in the boiling water – about a minute – then into an ice bath.

Turns out we needed two stock pots. This is only the tomatoes in their own juices.

Sauteed celery, onion, and garlic. Our home smelled FABULOUS!

Simmer simmer… couple hours to cook down to a thicker consistency.

Pressure cooker to 10 pounds and steam for 20 minutes.

We canned eight pints but have extra to go in the freezer, too. We weren’t sure how much was going to be produced.

Did I mention that we have MORE tomatoes? And more in the garden?

We really do have a bountiful garden!

Just look at the size of this Rutgers! We ate it for days. Perfect for a BLT.

How about you? Are you canning your tomatoes? Making sauce?