When you have too many tomatoes...make some sauce!

MILWAUKEE -- What do you say when you have too many tomatoes? Make some tomato sauce! Master Preserver Christina Ward joins Real Milwaukee with her basic tomato sauce recipe from her latest book Preservation: The Art and Science of Canning, Fermentation and Dehydration

Recipe: Basic Italian Tomato Sauce (Pomodori Verdi or Green Tomato Sauce)

Total Preparation Time: 2 hours
Special Equipment: Conical sieve or Vittorio tomato strainer
How Long Before Use: 1 day
Headspace: 1/2 inch
Process time: 35 minutes
Jars: 16-ounce, 32-ounce
Yield: 6–8 32-ounce jars

Note: This recipe makes a simple ‘ragu-style’ tomato sauce that can be used as is or serve as a base for more complex recipes. This is the only tomato sauce that can be processed in a hot-water bath canner; recipes containing vegetables render this sauce low-acid and must be pressure-canned. Dried and powdered spices are used to add flavor without drastically affecting the overall acidity of the sauce. Paste varieties of tomato have less juice and more pulp which works best for sauce and paste. Try Amish Paste, Roma, Jersey Devil, and the mother of all paste tomatoes—the San Marzanos.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Variation:
You can adjust the spices included in this recipe to suit your personal tastes as long as the total measurements do not exceed the totals in the recipe. This recipe easily becomes Pomodori Verdi or Green Tomato Sauce if you substitute the ripe red tomatoes for green tomatoes and use a white balsamic vinegar.

Step-by-Step Review of the Canning Process: