Canning Marinara Sauce: Step By Step With Fresh Tomatoes -

Equipment

20 quart stockpot
6 quart mason jars or 12 pint mason jars with lids and rings
Water bath canner
Knife
Blender
Fine mesh strainer
Large bowl
Jar lifter
Magnetic lid wand
Debubbler
Funnel
Ladle

Ingredients

25 lbs of tomatoes
2 medium onions chopped
3 Cups Sugar
3 Cups Vinegar (half white and half apple cider)
1 tsp Pepper
¼ Cup Salt
½ tsp Cinnamon
¼ tsp Celery seed
½ tsp Mustard powder
2 tsp Basil
2 tsp Parsley
1 tsp Italian
1½ tsp Oregano
5 tsp Garlic powder (added separately, instructions below)
3 tsp Dried chopped onion
1 tsp Dried minced garlic

Instructions

Prepare Your Tomatoes:Wash the tomatoes thoroughly to remove any dirt. Using a knife remove the cores and roughly chop them. Add them to your stockpot.
Simmer & Reduce:Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer while occasionally stirring it to prevent sticking on the bottom. Cook for 1-2 hours allowing the excess liquid to evaporate.
Blend Tomatoes: Allow the tomatoes to cool about 15 minutes. Add the tomatoes into the blender and blend on the low setting for 30 seconds. Continue this process until all tomatoes have been blended. Add the blended tomatoes back into the stockpot.
Season Sauce: To the sauce add the vinegar, sugar, cinnamon, salt, pepper, celery seed, mustard powder, 2 teaspoons of the garlic powder, the rest of the garlic powder will be added later, and chopped onion. Stir until the seasonings are thoroughly mixed. Allow to cook over medium heat for 30 minutes.
Strain Sauce: Place the strainer over a large bowl and begin straining the sauce. You will be separating the juice. Do NOT throw away the juice reserve both the juice and the strained sauce. The strained sauce is what we are going to be using as Marinara. Depending on how thick you want your marinara sauce you can strain half the batch and leave some juice or strain all of it like I did. The juice can be used for so many things! I usually use the juice to make homemade ketchup. If you need a ketchup recipe you can get my recipe here.
Add Remaining Spices: Now that you have just the sauce in a bowl (It should still be hot at this point if its not add it back to the pot to reheat.) Add in the basil, parsley, Italian, garlic powder, dried minced garlic, and dried chopped onion. Stir until all ingredients are incorporated thoroughly.
Fill Jars: Using a canning funnel, carefully ladle the hot marinara into clean mason jars, leaving about an inch of headspace at the top. This will allow for proper sealing and expansion during processing. To each jar add ¼ tsp of citric acid if your using quarts or ⅛ if your using pints. You can also use bottled lemon juice if you do not have citric acid. (You will have to adjust the measurement for lemon juice.)
Remove Air Bubbles: Using a debubbler remove any bubbles.
Wipe Rim, Add Lids, and Rings: Using a clean kitchen rag and vinegar wipe the rims of each jar to remove any food or water that may be on the rims that could prevent the jars from sealing. Using a magnetic lid wand place your clean lids on each jar and add a ring to each jar.
Process Jars: Place your filled jars into your water bath canner and process for 40 minutes for quarts or 35 minutes for pints once the water is at a rolling boil. Remove jars and place on a clean kitchen towel and let cool. Check each lid for a proper seal after 24 hours.

Notes

Depending on what kind of tomatoes you use will determine how much sauce you end up with. Paste tomatoes such as San Marzano are best to use because they contain less liquid. If you use sandwich tomatoes such as Beefsteak you will have more seeds and more juice. You can still use them you will just get less sauce and more juice.

Nutrition

Serving: 1cup | Calories: 220kcal