Canning Pizza Sauce the Easy Way

If you can your pizza sauce using fresh tomatoes, here is a faster and easier way to achieve delicious pizza sauce using a shortcut borrowed from the Italians!

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[Psych]

As an Italian it's so sweet to see you getting excited by this stuff, Pam - tomatoes are serious business for us 😂 What you've made would be a great base for a meat ragu, too

[kurtmunson]

This is an exciting discovery. Let me share one trick I use when making marinara or pizza sauce when I do have an abundance of tomatoes. I rarely have enough ripe at once to do a batch size that I feel is of economy. To solve 2 problems- sufficient tomatoes and excess water that needs to be cooked off, I skin my tomatoes as normal, then I quarter them and then fill a 1 gallon ziplock bag full and place it in the freezer and allow to fully freeze. When i have enough bags to make a batch of sauce, i remove the bags from the freezer and allow them to thaw over night. The freeze/thaw process will remove a large portion of the water that can simply be poured out of the bag leaving a fairly dry tomato which can then be crushed or ground up which results in a thick sauce very quickly. I haven't ever bothered doing a weight comparison but the water transfer is significant. This is a not a perfect scenario for everyone due to time or freezer constraints, but this option has worked well for me. The other nice thing is if you have too many frozen tomatoes you can simply leave them frozen until you have a need for them for other recipes. After thawing you can always grind the tomatoes and water together to reconstitute them. The water is also useful for other things as well. You should give it a try and let us know your results. Thanks for sharing your vast knowledge. Eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to share!

[RayBirch-pl]

I noticed one commenter dislked the taste of lemon juice acid when added to the pizza sauce recipe. One remedy to that is to add a TINY pinch of baking soda to the sauce AFTER opening the jar, before using. Amazingly, it raises the pH and sweetens the acid taste.

[mary-catherine]

I debated commenting on this but decided to go ahead. Pam, your new hairstyle wonderfully shapes your face. You look years younger! I just love your new look.

[gardengrowinmawmaw]

Just read this the other day: "The public has been told repeatedly that light-colored and small tomato cultivars are low in acid but it is a myth …. The small and light-colored varieties tend to be higher in acid (lower pH) than other tomato types”. This was the knowledge in 1977 and it is still the accepted knowledge. It is hard to believe that this myth is still very common today. If we define a low acid tomato as one with an average pH over 4.6, then they do exist, but only if grown in areas that produce low acid tomatoes. Since all tomatoes are at the higher (less acidic) end of the pH spectrum for acidic foods for home canning, adding 1/4 of lemon juice to each batch does still make sense. But if you forget to add it for a batch, there is no need for panic, and if you did everything else properly, they will be fine.The range of pH variation is actually very small and the data says that there really are no "low acid" varieties of tomatoes. The sweeter ones simply taste less acidic. "

[kaycee]

Since I don't care for the taste of the lemon juice or vinegar in my canned tomato products, I use citric acid instead. No aftertaste, and if it's too tart when I open it up, I can just add the sweetener of my choice.

[trudyhoffmann]

We can ours in quarter pints. Enough for a single pizza without leftovers

[KitchenFairy]

I Love those silicone measuring cup set!! I bought it after you first showed it a long while back. They come in so handy for measuring so many things! Love, love them!
After watching your Micro Moment Monday, I found the Cento tomatoes in a local chain discount store near me and I bought 3 cans at $2.99 a can. When my food stamps card refills tomorrow, I'm going back on Monday to buy more since on Monday's they have a senior discount of 20%. Now I can afford to stock my pantry with Cento tomatoes D:).

[l.calvert]

I fell down a rabbit hole and then my brain said, “Go to Rose Red.” My stress level is now down. Thank you for educating me and not selling me something.

[Pamela-B]

We love homemade pizza and I usually freeze my pre-made sauce. I use my homegrown tomatoes and don’t bother with peeling & de-seeding since I’m freezing it. I whirl it up in my Vitamix and it pulverizes it very well. So easy. But canning it with the purée is a great option and next time I’ll give it a try. I’ll probably use some 1/2 pint jars because that’s just enough for one pizza. I love the Cento brand…it’s my favorite! I usually get it at Costco.

[amymorales]

I have noticed that many newer varieties of tomatoes have a sweet taste. It used to be that all tomatoes were tart. I grew one variety last summer which was high in acid, and all of the others were not. I have a pH meter, and it’s really handy to make sure that the pH is low enough before water bath canning anything. With new varieties of fruit being introduced all the time, we can’t be 100 percent sure of the acidity unless we test. Also, we used to take for granted that the acidity of our vinegars were adequate for our canning recipes. Lately, some brands have cut the acidity of their vinegar. So now I test the acidity of my pickling solutions, too. Adding some citric acid generally solves the problem.

[wayne]

Vulgare' oregano is the oregano that Pam is talking about. you can grow from seed, available from Baker Creek seed. Chef Jean-Peirre has a wonderful recipe for marinara sauce, on his utube channel. He said Lavale tomatoes are just as good as San Marsano tomatoes and are a third of the cost. found at Italian markets.

[kellyh]

I love your content, thank you! I think (being married to an Italian), pizza sauce is so easy to make so I don't can it plus no need for lemon juice. Just pop open a can of Cento and add your ingredients, simmer for an hour. Leftovers can be put in the freezer or used in another recipe. I never liked lemon juice or other acidifiers in my sauces.

[danniemcdonald]

Thanks for the heads up on the oregano. I'm adding it to my Amazon list.
If you want to use your sauce on something besides pizza, try Pizza Pasta. A friend sent me the recipe years ago and it is so good.
It's basically pasta (I use spaghetti), sauce and any "toppings" that you like ... pepperoni, sausage (cooked), mushrooms, onions, peppers, black olives ... well, you get the idea 😊 Mix it all together, put it in a casserole dish and top with mozzarella cheese. Bake until bubbly. It's a nice change from pizza 🍕 or spaghetti 🍝 for dinner.

[RayBirch-pl]

Also...Mutti makes a delicious organic passata. It's sold in glass bottles.

[ScentSational]

I've been so hesitant to purchase a steam canner because I read the directions to say you can't boil more than 35 minutes. Due to our altitude, I've got to add 10 minutes to every recipe. However, in this Pizze Sauce video, you said you steam canned for 45 minutes! YAY! It'll go in my Amazon cart to watch the price now! Thank you from Arizona

[florence]

I have never added acid of any kind to my canned tomatoes and water bathed and never ever had a problem.

[rschroeder]

Pam...I'm confused. Why would lemon juice amount be different than other tomatoes in a jar?? Amount of acid added to tomatoes is based on size of jar, no?yes?

[debbihook]

My son loves to make homemade pizza. He will enjoy making this sauce to have on hand. Thank you!

[dang]

Clostridium botulinum bacteria are not killed by acidification or water bath canning. The acidification prevents it from growing / multiplying and producing the Botox toxin. You shouldn't expect to have no botulinum bacteria in your water bath canned products. That's not realistically achievable. That's why acidification is so important.