Canning Homemade Tomato Paste Recipe
Easy Tomato Paste Recipe
Instead of buying tomato paste, you can make your own thick paste from tomato purée. We have also taking the pulp from plum tomatoes and it’s better than store bought tomato paste, made with just a few ingredients (like olive oil, onions, basil, garlic and fresh tomatoes). This is a tomato paste recipe that will take several hours to cook down to tomatoes, but is so worth it.
Add this to your favorite canning recipes.
What Do You Do With Tomato Paste?
It can be used to thicken soups, enhance flavor to your spaghetti sauce. Tomato paste does not have as much liquid in it and is a big burst of tomato flavor in a small amount. Add this to your chili, you
Are You Making Tomato Paste In A Blender?
By using an immersion blender or blending, you are combining all the ingredients together, so that the tomatoes can easily go through the food mill. If you don’t blend them, it will take longer to process through the food mill.
Is It Worth Making Your Own Tomato Paste?
You are controlling what is going into your paste. There are only natural ingredients in it. This does not take a lot of effort, but takes time for the paste to reduce down.
Can You Make Tomato Paste From Tomato Sauce?
You can. Grab your slow cooker or if you are making a lot, get your roaster out and you are going to wand to reduce it and it may take a while, depending on how thing the tomato sauce is.
What Kind of Tomatoes Are Used To Make Paste?
We use plum tomatoes. Roma tomatoes are a popular plum tomato, but any plum will do. They are know for the thick meaty skin that will process down and make a delicious sauce.
How To Make Homemade Tomato Paste
Equipment
Ingredients
- 16 pounds plum tomatoes
- 1 1/2 cups chopped red bell pepper
- 2 basil leaves
- 1 teaspoon salt (optional)
- 1 clove garlic (optional)
- bottled lemon juice/citric acid
Instructions
Processing Tomatoes
- Wash tomatoes and peppers.
- Cut and remove seeds from peppers.
- Remove the stem end of the tomato and coarsely chop the tomatoes.
- If you are making tomato juice and discarded the meat and seeds from them, you can use this to make tomato paste.
- Place tomatoes and peppers into the dutch oven/large pot.
- Add the garlic and basil.
- Add the salt (optional)
- Cook the tomatoes for an hour. They should be softened. Be sure to stir often to keep them from sticking on the bottom of the pan.
- Remove from heat and puree tomatoes into liquid.
- Run puree through food mill (electric or manual).
- Place the pureed juice into a slow cooker, add the garlic and basil and allow to reduce for several hours.
- It will need to be thick on the back of a spoon. This could take 2-6 hours, depending on the thickness of your puree
- Once the tomato paste mounds on the back of a spoon, it's time to can!
Canning Tomato Paste
- Ensure water bath canner is has hot water before you start to jar the hot tomato paste.
- Add 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice into each jar. If you are using citric acid, add1/4 teaspoon per jar.
- Use a funnel and ladle the hot tomato paste into jars. We used quarter pints as this is about the amount we would use per use.
- Remove any air bubbles and leave 1/2 inch headspace in the jars.
- Wipe the rims with a clean towel.
- Place a seal on each jar and place a band finger tight on each jar.
- Place the jars into water bath canner. Once the water is boiling, process the jars for 45 minutes.
- Once time is up, turn off heat and allow jars to sit for 5 minutes before removing.
- Place jars on the counter with a towel under them.
- Cover the jars and allow them to cool for 12 hours.
- Remove the bands and check that the seals have sealed.
- Date and label jars and store in your pantry.
Video
This is very close to the Ball Blue Book recipe that I have been using for years, except they call for bay leaves instead of basil. Theirs also has the tomato measurement in quarts, but I find that weighing them is much easier, especially when I don’t have a lot of tomatoes and need to downsize the recipe. As an aside, I don’t can my tomato paste and just freeze it, though I probably should try canning some…..maybe this year…..haha.
Thank you. I try to follow the Ball canning recipes as much as possible. From what I understand, you can swap out the herbs. I prever basil. I went and bought a scale, so I could follow their instructions better (because it is frustrating to figure out). Freezing is a great idea too! Happy canning!