# Is there a secret to making tomato sauce?



## Vosey (Dec 8, 2012)

I just emptied the last of the tomatoes from the freezer I didn't have time to do anything with last fall. 50 lbs of Roma's. I cooked them down some, ran them through my Kitchen Aid strainer and added onions, salt, brown sugar, spices and cooked them down more and more until they were somewhat as thick as store bought sauce. 

The sauce is SO intense, really more like paste in flavor, but not thick. It's good, but almost overwhelming. I remembered that my sauce always turns out like this if I cook it a long time. 

Is there some trick to making sauce that is thick but not so puckeringly intense? And how do some commercial sauces have such a light and fresh taste? TJ's has a Pommodoro sauce I'd love to duplicate this year.


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## blooba (Feb 9, 2010)

I have found if you cook down the tomatoes by themselves for a while before adding the other ingredients it helps. Also low and slow doesnt give it as much of a cooked flavor. Me personally, I like the carmelization that happens when its cooked down unlike some of the jarred stuff that doesnt taste like its been cooked at all. 

Alot of the commercial stuff uses all different ways to thicken their stuff up, most of which you can't or dont want to duplicate. No experience with TJ's sauce so I'm not sure what kind of flavor profile your shooting for.


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## Cajun Arkie (Jun 11, 2012)

I am sure this may be just a personal taste thing but I have found mine does better if I hold off of to much spice and seasoning when I am actually making the sauce and then add it to whatever I am making at the time. Some herbs just become to intense when canning tomato sauce. I actually prefer mine not so thick but that is just a personal preference. I have ended up "breaking" the sauce especially with spaghetti sauce when I start out with to thick a sauce at the first but that might just be my error.


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## Twobottom (Sep 29, 2013)

Well I can tell you how my 101 year old sicilian grandmother makes sauce. This is strictly a simple marinara sauce ( meaning it has no meat ), meat sauce is a little more involved;

Boil your tomatoes briefly to peel and deseed.
olive oil in the pan ( hot pan cold oil )
add chopped onion
when onion begins to clarify add chopped garlic
when garlic begins to brown add your tomatoes
crush tomatoes up in the pan
add tomato paste
add salt
add fresh basil
add wine ( red or white doesnt matter) use 1 or 2 cups depending on the amount
let simmer slowly for an hour or so stirring occasionally

*Remember not to rinse your pasta after cooking this sheds the starch which will help the sauce cling to the pasta. Always serve topped with pecorino romano cheese.


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## Vosey (Dec 8, 2012)

Lots of good ideas. And great looking recipe! 

I'm thinking that next year I should can crushed tomatoes and then make sauce when we eat for a lighter, fresher tasting sauce. Then make the rest without seasoning. The super concentrated sauce I made is good for pizza and lasagne, and I'll eat anything I make, so it's not a disaster, I'm just shooting for perfection as always!


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## InTownForNow (Oct 16, 2008)

i dont add anything to my sauce when i can it. i just add to it when i use it to make something.


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## 1shotwade (Jul 9, 2013)

I do things a lot different so if I'm messing up somebody tell me so. To start with I have never bought into the idea you have to peel tomatoes.What I do is take raw tomatoes and rum them through my juicer,skins and all. It's fast and easy. Then I recombine and start cooking it down. When it starts simmering I add basil,oragino and thyme,salt garlic and pepper.After 1/2 hr to 45 min. I drain off the thin juice and can it for tomato juice to drink.The rest is simmered down "for ever!" 'till I get the consistency I'm looking for.AT that point I add fresh hot peppers,sweet bell peppers and lots of fresh diced onions.Once stirred in it goes to the jars and is canned.(and yes,there are seeds in it but if you use ripe tomatoes it just adds to the "home made" quality of the sauce.)I always pressure can when making sauces just to be sure.
We like it just like that.We can always add meat if we want when we open it up to use it.The only problem we have is I haven't figured out how to get it to stick to the pasta. (help me out here will ya?). I would also like your thoughts on using corn starch or flour to help it thicken up more and faster. I've thought about it but never tried it.

Thanks,


Wade


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## Vosey (Dec 8, 2012)

Wade - I agree about not peeling tomatoes! I go for the least time-intensive route on everything when it comes to putting up food that is mounded in piles around me. And it's why I haven't canned crushed tomatoes yet. But just occurred to me that maybe that is part of the intense flavor as well. These tomatoes were whizzed in the cuisinart before freezing. I cooked them down a fair bit before straining. I'm definitely going to try a few different ways this year. 

Make sure you drain your pasta really well. Whenever DH makes pasta the sauce doesn't stick and it seems watery, when I make it I drain it super well and it sticks.


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## doingitmyself (Jul 30, 2013)

Vosley,

This is what i do. First I grow only Roma's for my sauces. When i do sauce I cut the core/stem out, then cut tomatoes in half, then I squeeze the small amount of goo and seeds out. Now into the mill with a med. fine sleeve. When I have a pile of skins and very few seeds I run it all through the mill again, I believe just under the skin is where the sweetest flesh is, the second run produces a sweeter and deeper red sauce of its own. Its added to the big batch.

I can in quarts and let sit till needed, that's when the pulp separates from the water, I then siphon off the slightly bitter water with a turkey baster and use three quarts to make two finished quarts of pasta, spaghetti, or pizza sauce. 

The reason for all this is so i do not have to cook down the sauce too much and i get a 'cleaner, fresher" tomato tasting sauce. It has a fresher taste completely different from the longer slower cooked type of sauce. I use similar ingredients to those listed above. I make the finished sauce as i need it, and freeze anything i don't use. 

I got the specs. for this type of sauce from a client of mine thats 100% Italian,, she mentioned that not all tomato sauces need or even should be slow cooked. She said she would not use "the short cooked sauce" for lasagna or casserole type tomato dishes. 

In her opinion the longer cooked types of sauce produce a more robust taste and sometimes you don't want that. I hope all this helps someone, i did not mean to write a book.


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## Vosey (Dec 8, 2012)

Thanks doingitmyself and like the new pic - now no one will think you'e a female 

I think this season I will try all these ideas and have a bunch of different sauces. We are also planting 4 different types of Roma's so hopefully they will not all be ready at once! A little staggering of the crop may help keep 100 lbs out of the freezer. Then I'll have more time to play with them.


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## Leister Square (Feb 7, 2010)

Too bad I won't have Romas this year. I started Romas, Beefsteak, Cherry and Mortgage Lifters indoors this year. The Romas and Beefsteaks did not do well and slowly failed, even after transplanting into cups. The Mortgage Lifters and Cherries are amazing and there are some blooms on the cherries already. (planted outside late February). I don't know why my new Roma seeds didn't do well....and generally, Beefsteak are my "go to" tomato so I have no idea why they failed this year...


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## Vosey (Dec 8, 2012)

So the very intense sauce was pretty good as a pizza sauce, so now I know how to make a good pizza sauce!


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## ROSEMAMA (Jan 12, 2007)

Vosey said:


> Wade - I agree about not peeling tomatoes! I go for the least time-intensive route on everything when it comes to putting up food that is mounded in piles around me. And it's why I haven't canned crushed tomatoes yet. But just occurred to me that maybe that is part of the intense flavor as well. These tomatoes were whizzed in the cuisinart before freezing.


I agree on not peeling (learned canning toms from Gran who did the whole blanch/peel routine). If you're gonna freeze 'em anyway, then do it first...When you thaw 'em out the skins slip right off..

I take all my toms for canning and cut in half to get the seeds/gel out (optional), throw 'em in a gal. freezer bag and save 'em until I get enough or time to make a big batch. Or you can wait till winter when you don't care about heating up the kitchen.


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## KnowOneSpecial (Sep 12, 2010)

InTownForNow said:


> i dont add anything to my sauce when i can it. i just add to it when i use it to make something.


My Mom does this! What's neat is that my Dad will toss it in a blender with some water and drink it like one drinks tomato juice. He'll run it through the strainer first. He loves the stuff! 

My tastes and my Mom's are different. I like more oregano and basil in my sauce than she does. I just take her sauce and toss in fresh chopped stuff when I go to cook. I like the taste a lot more.


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## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

I would never put brown sugar in my sauce, way to heavy.


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## strawberrygirl (Feb 11, 2009)

InTownForNow said:


> i dont add anything to my sauce when i can it. i just add to it when i use it to make something.


 This is what we started doing. It works out much better for us.


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## Becka03 (Mar 29, 2009)

we cook ours for at least 2 or 3 days in large roasters- 
We use chopped onions
tomatoes
basil
oregano
salt
pepper
white sugar
but we also add all the seasonings at the beginning too- and we add more to taste as it cooks down-


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## Leay (Mar 4, 2004)

A friend gave me this recipe for tomato sauce, and I've been using it ever since. Cut tomatoes in half, drizzle with olive oil, add salt, oregano, basil....whatever you like. Cook in oven at 300 degrees for one hour and then throw them in the food processor. I then heat them up in a stock pot and can. Sometimes I'll add a bunch of minced garlic and onion to the stock pot too and can hot. I think leaving the skins on helps thicken the sauce.


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## mzgarden (Mar 16, 2012)

Just to add to the discussion. Way too hot to can in our little house during the season, so we pick, wash and cut an X in the bottom of each. Throw them in freezer bags and freeze. When it cools down, remove bags, let them thaw, drain off and save the 'water.' Skins slide off. Into the blender and then into a roaster pan in the oven overnight on low heat. By morning, they're cooked down without tasting 'cooked', they are hot and ready to can. Generally I don't add much seasoning until I get ready to use them. I saved the 'water' from thawing to add to soups and stews.


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## Vosey (Dec 8, 2012)

Lots of great ideas here! And I found yet another gallon bag bursting at the seams with tomatoes in the freezer this weekend....


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## TerriLynn (Oct 10, 2009)

I just found this thread and had to share my method of making tomato sauce, I take my tomatoes and quarter them and put them in an electric turkey roaster, I also add garlic, onions, celery, and green peppers.

I usually set the temp on the electric roaster at around 250*-300* and let them cook down overnight. In the morning everything is soft and I run it through my food mill. What I have at that point is tomato/vegetable juice.

I then wash my electric roaster and pour all that juice back into it (actually I have 2 turkey roasters full of tomatoes cooking all night and after they are all juiced they fit nicely into 1 roaster). The roaster holds 22 quarts of liquid and I turn the heat up all the way it will go, and leave the lid off, it makes an awesome evaporator pan! (I also use it to make apple butter)

The heating elements in the roaster are in the sides so the liquid cooks off from there while the solids settle to the bottom. So it doesn't burn. I only have to give it a stir every couple of hours or so until the end when it really thickens up then I stir about every half hour.

My friend makes her tomato sauce with a slight variation. She cooks the tomatoes all day with the garlic, onions, celery, and peppers then runs it through a food mill to make juice, then she puts it in the refrigerator for about 24 hours. The solids separate and float to the top, she simply scoops off whats floating and discards the remaining liquid in the bottom of her pot. She then seasons with whatever spices she likes and cans it from there.

Sorry to be so long winded but I hope it was helpful.


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## Marianne (Feb 22, 2009)

These are such great suggestions!!! I always dread the sauce making as it requires so much cooking and stirring all day, but I'm actually looking forward to it now! I've still got a few weeks till my 'maters start coming in. I think I'll try them all!!!!


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

My sister in-law told me this method for tomato sauce, 

core the tomatoes if they are Roma cut a plus in the top about 1/2 way down fill pans I use 9x13 but you can use roaster pans or what ever you have. Bake at 375 to 400 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes, give or take, depending if your oven is full or not and size of pans used. This cooks water out of the tomato. remove a pan at a time from oven, with slotted spoon remove tomatoes and put in a colander, press out water gently. When you have pressed out as much water as you can run the tomatoes through a food mill. Save the tomato water. You should have a thick sauce. once you have a pan full of sauce add what ever spices you want, jar and can. Pour the water from the tomatoes into pitchers and let set over night, clear water should float to top, skim off and you have tomato juice to drink, jar and can the juice. This eliminates cooking on the stove, waiting for the sauce to cook down, the water is baked out rather than trying to boil it away. I've done this for 3 years and makes a nice thick sauce the only problem is it's not sticky, it doesn't cling to pasta very well, I just recently bought a new food mill and I'm going to try a finer screen to see if it corrects this. I also run the tomato pulp through the food mill twice. My wife refuses to buy tomato sauce now she has tasted the stuff I make.


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## semimoonman (Oct 31, 2012)

There are so many great ideas here and so many great ways to can tomatoes. 

I use a process similar to what BlackFeather is describing, except I keep it going until the oven heat has evaporated all the liquid. (Amusing side note: in a fancy restaurant, that water you're pouring off is called "tomato water" and goes for a hefty price. ). I know that I wrote out my whole process in a different post. Often, when I use this sauce, I dilute it with water when I'm cooking with it. 

Twobottom: that recipe is almost exactly my Sicilian grandmother's recipe! Perhaps we are distant cousins. My grandmother added the tomato paste before the crushed tomatoes. She also added water with the paste and simmered it for a little while before adding to the crushed tomatoes. 
My mother canned dozens of quarts of this every year, and it canned beautifully. 

We also do some whole peeled tomatoes. I love juliets for this because they Blanche and peel so beautifully. But mzgarden, your alternative freeze and peel method sounds straight up genius, and I'm going to have to try this. Thank you for sharing.

The newest addition to our tomato canning work is Love Tomatoes (so named because our good friends first did this on the (very practical) honeymoon). It's just blanched, peeled, and chopped large, mostly heirloom, non-paste tomatoes canned in their own juices (plus a little fresh lemon juice). It yields very fresh tasting tomatoes to be used in quick sauces. 

I also make a freezer sauce (which I'm going to try to pressure can once I get my pressure canning system up and running). It's dead simple:
1 part celery (finely diced)
1 part carrot (finely diced)
1 part onion (finely diced)
6 parts tomato (chopped)
1-2 parts water
Simmer everything together for 45 minutes. PurÃ©e. Strain. Freeze. 
When you want to use it, defrost it, add salt and pepper to taste. Heat. Add about 1 part cream or butter. Gently heat. Eat. 
This preparation also works well as a soup without the cream. 
It's also great added to meat for a meat sauce.

1shotwade: when you are making your sauce, do you simmer your ground meat in milk? If not, try it. When you have just browned meat--plus maybe some onion--in the pan, add about a cup of milk per two pounds of meat. Simmer it wicked low for about an hour until the milk has cooked off and slightly caramelized. Then had the tomatoes and other vegetables. I add the recipe from directly above at this point. 

In general, I've found a couple of guidelines for canning tasty tomatoes:
1. Don't add too many herbs or spices before canning because sometimes the flavors become off on the shelf and it narrows down what the cans can be used for.

2. Use fresh not bottled lemon juice whenever possible. Its more expensive, but a few years ago I had a batch of salsa that tastes powerfully of the preservatives in the cheap, bottled citrus that I'd purchased. No more. If I'm spending days and days of my life to grow and preserve delicious, preservative-free tomatoes, it's worth the $10-20 I'm going to spend on lemons. 

3. We always want to have at least two types of tomatoes--slow cooked sauce and less cooked whole/chopped tomatoes. They taste remarkably different and have different uses. 

Hopefully, tomatoes will start ripening soon up here...


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