Homemade Tomato Paste Recipe
Make your own homemade tomato paste using fresh plum tomatoes cooked down into a thick, rich paste. This slow cooked method gives you deep tomato flavor for soups, chili and spaghetti sauce. Simple ingredients and steady cooking time make this a great pantry staple for everyday meals and canning recipes.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 16 pounds plum tomatoes
- 1 ½ 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.