Tomato Sauce, Farmer-Style

From Sarah Voiland, 2011

Here’s a quick description of how we make our sauce here, the short-cut way. We like to do just tomatoes, and then add our otherheirloom tomato sauce canning preserves cooking sauce ingredients like onions, carrots, frozen peppers, garlic etc. in the winter when we go to use the sauce. Then you can make anything you want with it, from spaghetti sauce to tomato soup.

  1. We get lots of tomatoes and wash them and cut out the stem parts and bad spots.
  2. Then chop them in large chunks and puree them, skins, seeds and all in the blender or food processor.
  3. Then put the puree in a big pot, and bring to a boil then simmer on low, stirring, until you get the thickness you want. The real key is having a good pot with a thick bottom that will keep stuff from sticking and burning on the bottom, and keeping an eye on it. A stirrer with a flat bottom edge that you can swipe across the bottom of the pan is great.
  4. Once you have your thickness, you can it, using the boiling water method, 30 to 45 minutes or whatever your how-to-boiling-water-bath info source says. We’re a big fan of the wide mouth quart jars -easier to clean later on.
  5. Instead of canning, you can also freeze the sauce instead! Jars make great presents. Freezing is easier if you have room in your freezer.

Here’s a great resource for canning recipes and methods: The National Center for Home Food Preservation.

Varieties of Tomatoes for SauceĀ heirloom tomato sauce
You can make really flavorful sauces from mixed heirloom varieties. Heirlooms may take a little bit longer to cook down, but the flavor is great. Paste or Saucing Tomatoes have less juice and cook down faster, and also taste really good. I make big batches with the paste tomatoes, and then I like to make some batches with certain varieties of tomatoes, like an all Brandywine Sauce, and a sauce with only white, yellow and orange tomato varieties. Red Slicing types are great for salsa, and can also make good sauce with a little longer cooking time than with paste varieties.