Common Sense Home

Using sound judgment to be more self-reliant.

AfrikaansArabicChinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)GermanHindiIndonesianIrishJapaneseKoreanRussianSpanish
Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission to support the site at no extra cost to you. Thank you!

Spaghetti Sauce for Canning Made with Fresh Tomatoes

by 97 Comments

Share2K
Pin19K
Tweet
21K Shares

A good spaghetti sauce recipe for canning is a must in our house, because many commercial spaghetti sauces use ingredients like genetically modified high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil – not things we normally eat.

My husband came in from outside the first time I was canning spaghetti sauce, smiled and said the house smelled like an Italian restaurant – a good Italian restaurant. I had to agree. It takes a while to cook, but the end result is delicious! I start a batch in the morning, and slow cook while I'm working on other things in the kitchen, like prepping the rest of the ingredients and canning equipment. Paste tomatoes will yield a thicker sauce with less cooking, but you can use any tomatoes that you have available.

You can also cut this spaghetti sauce recipe in half or to a fourth. Just keep the processing time the same, or freeze the spaghetti sauce instead of canning.
spoonful of spaghetti sauce for canning being scooped out of stock pot

NOTE:  You do need to use a pressure canner  for canning this spaghetti sauce recipe, since it contains low acid ingredients like oil and onions. See The Natural Canning Resource Book  for a full explanation of safe canning practices, or “How to Can Food at Home – Quick Guide to Safe Home Canning” for a quick review of the basics.

MY LATEST VIDEOS

Spaghetti Sauce Recipe for Canning with Fresh Tomatoes

My favorite canning spaghetti sauce recipe is adapted from The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emery. This recipe is very close to the “Spaghetti sauce without Meat” recipe listed on the National Center for Home Food Preservation website, so you know it's a safe canning recipe.

Ingredients

  • 30 pounds tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup butter or olive oil
  • 1 cup chopped onions
  • 5 minced garlic cloves
  • 1 cup chopped celery or green pepper (I used celery)
  • 1 pound sliced mushrooms (optional)
  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 2 teaspoons black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons oregano (flakes, not powder)
  • 1/4 cup minced parsley
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar or unrefined cane sugar (rapadura or sucanat)

Directions

Wash 30 pounds of tomatoes. Remove cores and quarter tomatoes. Cook 20 minutes, uncovered, in large pan or pans to soften tomatoes. I cook mine at a strong simmer in an assortment of heavy bottom stainless steel pans. I have also used a Nesco roaster. Thick bottom pans prevent accidental scorching, frequent stirring is recommended. Don't use aluminum, folks, it will react with the acid in the tomatoes. When I cook on the stove top, I start with four pans and cook the sauce down to one 8 quart stockpot.

cooking down tomatoes in a Nesco roaster for canning spaghetti sauce

Put tomatoes through a food strainer or food mill. I have a Back to Basics food strainer that works beautifully. Years ago I used a chinoise strainer, and I still use it for small batches, but for large batches the food strainer can't be beat. It's so much faster!

using a food strainer to remove seeds and skins from tomatoes for canning spaghetti sauce

Cook down tomatoes to reduce volume and make a thicker sauce. We start with four pots and end up with one. This is the base of your spaghetti sauce.

stock pot filled with tomato sauce cooking down to make homemade spaghetti sauce

While the sauce is cooking, you can do the rest of the prep work, like chopping the rest of your veggies, filling the canner, and getting the lids and jars ready.

My pressure canner uses three quarts of water, to which I add one tablespoon of white vinegar to reduce hard water build up on the jars. I wash my jars in the dishwasher and keep them hot until I'm ready to fill. I keep my lids in hot water in a one quart saucepan (do not boil lids), and use kitchen tongs for lifting them out of the water. The latest generation of canning lids from Ball do not require preheating, but I have a stock of lids that I am still working through.

To Finish the Spaghetti Sauce for Canning

Saute in 1/4 cup butter or olive oil until tender: onions, garlic, celery or green pepper, and mushrooms. Combine sauteed vegetables and tomatoes. Add salt, black pepper, oregano, parsley and sugar.

Bring to a boil. Stir frequently to avoid burning. Reduce heat to simmer, keep hot while waiting to process.

Canning the Spaghetti Sauce

Fill jars, leaving 1 inch headspace. Adjust lids. Process in a pressure canner 20 minutes for pints, 25 minutes for quarts.

If using a weighted-gauge canner, set at 10 pounds pressure at 0-1,000 feet above sea level; set at 15 pounds pressure at higher altitudes. If using a dial-gauge canner; set at 11 pounds pressure at 0-2000 feet above sea level; 12 pounds at 2,001-4,000 feet; 13 pounds at 4,001-6,000 feet; 14 pounds at 6.001-8,000 feet; or 15 pounds above 8,000 feet.

Allow canner to cool and release pressure. Remove jars and set on towel on counter. Let rest until cool, or overnight. Remove rings, wipe any spills. Date and label and store in a cool, dry location, out of direct sunlight. Best used within 1-2 years.

Yields around eight pints of home canned spaghetti sauce.

home canned spaghetti sauce in mason jars with tomatoes in background

If You Don't Have Enough Ripe Tomatoes from One Picking

If you don't have enough ripe tomatoes at one time for canning spaghetti sauce, you can pop tomatoes that are very ripe or damaged into the freezer, until you have enough for the recipe.

I usually core the tomatoes and half or quarter them (depending on the size) before freezing. Then, when I am planning on canning spaghetti sauce the next day, I place them in the sink overnight to thaw. In the morning, you can pour off some of the clear juice if you like so that the cook down quicker. Weigh them out, dump them into your stockpot, and start cooking.

I have found that ripe, undamaged tomatoes will easily keep for a week or more at room temperature. Cracked or otherwise damaged tomatoes will only last a day or two before spoiling and/or attracting fruit flies, so they should be processed in some manner within 24 hours, if possible.

If you have fruit that's refusing to ripen, check out “4 Reasons your Tomatoes Aren’t Ripening – And What You can Do About it“. If you have tomato blossoms, but no fruit, we have help for that, too.

Recommended Equipment for Canning Spaghetti Sauce:

Print Friendly Recipe

Print

Home Canned Spaghetti Sauce

canning spaghetti sauce

★★★★★

5 from 2 reviews

Never buy spaghetti sauce from the store again.This homemade canning spaghetti sauce recipe is slow cooked and loaded with flavor. May also be used fresh or frozen if you don't have a pressure canner.

  • Prep Time: 5 hours
  • Cook Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 5 hours 20 minutes
  • Yield: 8 pints
  • Category: Sauce
  • Method: Canning
  • Cuisine: American-Italian

Ingredients

  • 30 pounds tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup butter or olive oil
  • 1 cup chopped onions
  • 5 minced garlic cloves
  • 1 cup chopped celery or green pepper
  • 1 pound sliced mushrooms (optional)
  • 2 tablespoons salt
  • 2 teaspoons black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons dried oregano (flakes, not powder)
  • 1/4 cup minced parsley
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar or unrefined cane sugar

Instructions

  1. Wash 30 pounds of tomatoes. Remove cores and quarter tomatoes. Boil 20 minutes, uncovered, in large pan (or pans).
  2. Put through food strainer or food mill. Cook down tomatoes to reduce volume and make a thicker sauce. Reduce volume by 1/2 to 2/3rds.
  3. While the sauce is cooking, you can do the rest of the prep work, like chopping the rest of your veggies and getting the lids and jars ready. Prepare pressure canner according to manufacturer's instructions.

To Finish the Sauce

  1. Saute in 1/4 cup butter or olive oil until tender: onions, garlic, celery or green pepper, and mushrooms.
  2. Combine sauteed vegetables and tomatoes.
  3. Add salt, black pepper, oregano, parsley and sugar.
  4. Bring to a boil. Stir frequently to avoid burning. Reduce heat to simmer, keep hot while waiting to process.
  5. Fill jars, leaving 1 inch headspace. Adjust lids.
  6. Process in a pressure canner 20 minutes for pints, 25 minutes for quarts. If using a weighted-gauge canner, set at 10 pounds pressure at 0-1,000 feet above sea level; set at 15 pounds pressure at higher altitudes. If using a dial-gauge canner; set at 11 pounds pressure at 0-2000 feet above sea level; 12 pounds at 2,001-4,000 feet; 13 pounds at 4,001-6,000 feet; 14 pounds at 6.001-8,000 feet; or 15 pounds above 8,000 feet.
  7. Allow canner to cool and release pressure. Remove jars and set on towel on counter. Let rest until cool, or overnight. Remove rings, wipe any spills. Date and label and store in a cool, dry location, out of direct sunlight. Best used within 1-2 years.

Nutrition

  • Serving Size: 1 cup

Keywords: spaghetti sauce, marinara, tomato sauce, canning

You may also enjoy:

spaghetti sauce for canning made with fresh tomatoes

Originally published in 2009, updated 2016, 2018.

Get Homesteading 101 FREE, plus weekly updates and Subscribers Only information delivered to your inbox.

Powered by ConvertKit

Comments

  1. Good tutorials on both the spaget sauce and salsa! I've been making and freezing "raw" tomatoe soup and sauce – sure glad those 'maters made it before the frost nailed the garden!

    Reply

    • My question is if I could core the tomatoes and get the seeds out that way and than puree them in a food processor?

      Reply

      • It’s a lot easier to cook them up and then run them through a food strainer, food mill or chinois than to hand remove the seeds, but if you really wanted to, you could blanch the tomatoes to remove the skins, core them and seed them and then cook them down and run them through a food processor. Alternatively, you could core them, seed them and skip blanching, and just grind up the peels, too. Some people even skip removing the seeds – but I find them quite bitter and unpleasant when pureed.

        Reply

  3. Most days it smells pretty good, I must admit. That's one of my favorite parts of cooking and one of my favorite things to come home to after a day in town. :^)

    Reply

  4. Laurie, I am loving your posts! Just the inspiration I am needing! Those tomatoes look fabulous and I can just smell the sauce. I am growing more tomatoes next year. *Ü*

    Reply

  5. Michelle, some of my favorite paste varieties are Amish Paste, Opalka and Purple Russian. For me, one or more of these three will produce large, meaty fruit and lots of them no matter what the weather conditions. My favorite seed sources are on the sidebar. It takes time to do this, but the technique is easy and the flavor is outstanding.

    Reply

    • I do not have the answer but I have my tom already throught food processor, so how much do I need for 30 lbs of tomatoes

      Reply

      • I really don’t know. I always measure by starting tomato weight. Before I cook them down, there are around 21 quarts of quartered tomatoes, but I’ve never attempted to use a food processor, or measure them mid-processing.

        Reply

  7. What, no Basil in your pasta sauce? 🙂

    I keep looking back at this recipe, and after making a couple of batches of tomato sauce (not this recipe unfortunately as we just don't have that many tomatoes in our little garden) I wonder about the food ratios; you mention that "It is not safe to increase the proportion of onions, peppers, celery or mushrooms in this recipe if you are planning to can the sauce …" but you reduce the amount of tomatoes considerably during the entire process. Is this what you expect of the volume of tomatoes to vegetables?

    Reply

  8. Glenn, believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of basil. I use it pretty sparingly in the kitchen. You could probably sub it in for the mushrooms or any of the other non-acidic ingredients.

    As for the tomato ratio and safety issues, the quote was from the original recipe. What I believe she wanted to avoid was people overloading the sauce with other ingredients and losing the acidity of the tomatoes. You're only driving off excess water, not really changing the proportions, when you cook the tomatoes down, with or without the other veggies. Either should increase the acidity of the end product. If one was to add an extremely high proportion of non-acidic ingredients, you could potentially create a low-acid environment that would be much more prone to spoilage. I don't think tweaking a bit this way or that would be a problem, but some people go overboard. If it's really a concern one could use a pH test on the final product before canning and add some lemon juice or vinegar to lower the acidity if needed.

    Reply

    • I thought you could base your canning times and pressure on the lowest acid ingredient in the recipe and maintain a safe product. More onions you would base the times and pressures on canning onions, etc

      Reply

      • While basing processing times on the lowest acid ingredient may by effective, other factors may be at work, like thickness of product. Given the wide range of skill levels of people using recipes on the site, I try to keep things as simple as possible.

        Reply

    • Water bath canning is not recommended for this sauce because the additional ingredients (other than tomatoes) raise the pH of the final product to a level where water bath canning is considered unsafe.

      Reply

  13. So glad I found this recipe! I plan to make some spaghetti sauce tomorrow (already have a “killer” recipe for salsa 🙂 Thank you!

    Reply

  15. Laurie, I just went over the entire recipe but I cannot find the recipe for the salsa, did I miss it? Can you share (email) it with me and the stewed tomatoes? Thank you

    Reply

    • The link to the salsa is in the text right about the photo of finished jars, but I’ll make it to see because if you can’t see it, other can’t, either. Here’s the link to the salsa recipe: https://commonsensehome.com/home-canned-salsa-that-tastes-a-lot-like-a-national-brand-except-better/

      For the stewed tomatoes, I followed the Blue Book directions. Peel the tomatoes and put them in a large pot. Heat to quite warm ( no need to boil, you just don’t want to put cold food in hot jars). Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice to each pine, 2 tablespoons to each quart jar. This makes sure that the tomatoes are acidic enough to safely can, as many modern varieties are less acidic. Pack tomatoes into hot jars. Poke are press down with a wooden spoon or chopstick to make sure the air is out. Leave 1/2 inch headspace. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt per pint, 1 teaspoon salt per quart. (Optional). Put on lids and process pints and quarts 1 hour and 25 minutes in a boiling water bath or 25 minutes at 10 pounds pressure in a pressure canner.

      Reply

  16. hi there, question-
    back in the day canning tomatoes was just tomatoes,.salt, sugar and we used basil. all fresh and in water bath. no vinegar, lemon juice or citric acid. a recent glance at ball book spaghetti sauce recipe online and a number of other on line recipes say to use either one of those w the recipe it gives. more research and we read todays genetically modified tomatoes need citric acid, vinegar or lemon juice for canning. whats ur experience on this?
    thanks 🙂

    Reply

    • As far as I know, there are not currently any genetically modified tomatoes on the market – however – most modern hybrids are lower in acidity than traditional heirloom varieties. With the addition of herbs and/or other vegetables, this could place your tomato based sauce into the low acid range, making it a candidate for botulism or other food borne illness. Thus, the addition of lemon or vinegar to most current tomato sauce recipes.

      Reply

    • Yes, that agrees with my understanding. Better safe than sorry, as we deal with nastier bugs than they did in the past.

      Thank you for your words of encouragement. Some days it’s tough to find the energy to tackle it all. The kind words help keep me motivated.

      Reply

  20. Hi, sounds wonderful! I can my tomatoes only. Any way you can break your reciepe down for a pint of tomatoes?
    Thanks!

    Reply

  21. I admit I did not read all the previous comments – just a quick scan. I was just wondering if it would be safe to remove the sugar from the recipe?

    Reply

  22. Finally found THE recipe! It was well worth the time involved. I got 9 pints. I wish it wasn’t so late in the season so there would be enough tomatoes to make another batch!!!!! Planning for next year….

    Reply

  23. I’m just wondering why you use so many pots and don’t try using an electric roaster? It sure cuts down on the extra work.

    Reply

  24. Since this is pressure canned, the ratio of veggies will not affect safe acidity levels; that is only an issue with water bath canning. I am hoping to have a good crop of tomatoes this year and will try this recipe. I’m still on the look out for a great tasting speghetti sauce recipe. thanks.

    Reply

      • We add a lot more onions and and garlic to our 30 lbs of tomatoes and more spices too. We do add a tablespoon of lemon juice to each quart jar and have never had a problem with spoilage.

        Reply

  25. Hello thanks so much for the recipe. Planning on making this tonight but had a couple questions. I didn’t read anything about removing the skins. Should I leave them on? Also can I process themm in a magic bullet and just leave the seeds in my sauce? Thanks.

    Reply

    • The seeds are removed with the food strainer (“Put through large food mill or sieve.” ) – fourth photo on page.

      There are websites out there that will recommend pureeing seeds and skins in a high powered blender, but I’m not one of them. I tried it – once. The result was an incredibly bitter, basically inedible sauce. It was foul. Skins alone might not be quite as bad, but if you’re straining seeds you might as well strain skins, too.

      Reply

  26. Hey Laurie, I love the recipe, but have a question: Is there a reason that you cook the tomatoes down for the 20 mins before straining out the skins and seeds? Why not just chop them and put them through the strainer before beginning the cooking process? Just wondering if there was a specific reason?

    Reply

    • I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you did it and tested the pH and it was below 4.6, it should be safe. That much lemon would really make the taste less pleasant. The sauce can also be frozen if you don’t have a pressure canner.

      Reply

  29. My family brings the processed tomatoes to a boil and then places them in sterilized jars. The lids are simultaneously boiling in water and are pulled out one by one and placed on the jars, topped off with a ring. The heated lids form the seal then with the heat from the tomatoes. We only put the jars in water if the tomatoes were not very hot.

    Reply

    • Lots of families process tomatoes the same way. My mom did that years ago. Unfortunately, with the more deadly microbes we have now, a better understanding of food science, and the higher pH of many modern tomato varieties, it is no longer recommended for safety reasons.

      Reply

  30. Hi there Laurie,
    I’m not sure if I’ve shared this with you before but I apologize if I have.
    So, one year I had a HUGE crop of ‘maters and no time to prep and can them. So I rinsed them, and froze them whole. Then that winter I had to figure out what I was going to do with all these frozen tomatoes. I had wanted fire roasted tomatoes like the ones from Muir Glen. But grilling tomatoes is a thankless and wasteful job. Luckily, I discovered that if you take the frozen whole tomatoes out of the freezer and set them on the counter for 45 minutes, they are then barely soft enough to cut in half. Take the frozen halves and lay them face up on a cooling rack set over a sheet pan and put in a 350 degree oven for one hour. The only caution I would share is all the water will be in the sheet pan so use extreme caution pulling them out of the oven. (I cool the water and give to my plants or pour over my dogs food) So now I have roasted halves of tomatoes. I let them cool a bit and then gingerly pick them up by the underside and using clean hands of course, squeeze the meat out into a dish and what’s left is either the skin (on the bottom half of the tomato) or the skin and stem (on the top half). I then give the skins and stems to my chickens who are VERY happy to get this bounty.
    What I have is a lovely roasted tomato puree that needs only a bit of salt and herbs to make marinara sauce. No need for paste or hours of cooking. You should try it sometime. It really is a great way to make marinara sauce. And I just water bath canned them. I would love to hear what you think about this method as I literally stumbled upon it trying to figure out how to deal with bags of frozen whole tomatoes one year. I have never seen anyone else do this so….
    Anyway, Thanks again,
    Pam

    Reply

    • I don’t think you shared this before, or if you did, I can’t recall. I’d probably freeze, dry or freeze dry the resulting sauce, because tomatoes can be right on the edge of the current guidelines for safe water bath canning in terms of pH. The current recommendations called for added lemon or citric acid to canned tomato juice, tomatoes and sauces, which affects the flavor quite a bit (to me). if you did some pH testing and made sure it was below 4.6, then you’d know for sure you were out of botulism land.

      It sounds tasty.

      Reply

  31. Do you have a brand or type of pressure canner you recommend? We did hot water bath canning last year but have 16 tomato plants and want to try doing sauce this year.

    Reply

  32. I have already finished my canning this year, but for future canning… if you leave out the mushrooms, is it safe to increase the other non-acidic ingredients (onion, celery, bell pepper)? It seems logical to me, but haven’t found any guidelines to confirm. And if so, would the safe amount of increase (onions, celery, bell peppers) be 1 lb. total? I don’t see any good reason to add the mushrooms to the sauce before canning, since the finished product will be used in a variety of ways, and I can always add mushrooms before serving, if desired.

    Reply

  33. How many cups of puree should I get? It seems that starting with lbs there could be some variation in the ratios,

    Reply

  34. Hi Laurie, I’m new to canning and I’d love to try this recipe. Can I use fresh oregano instead of dried? I have more oregano in my garden this year than I know what to do with. 😊

    Reply

  35. Good morning,
    I stumbled across your tomato sauce recipe and am making a batch now. I had a bushel of Roma tomato’s and the end weight is around 38 lbs. I eliminated the mushrooms and had several tablespoons over the 1 cup of both green peppers and onions not much though. I am wondering if you have heard of or have tried using canned tomato paste to thicken your sauce. Also I would like to add dried basil would that alter the recipe?

    Reply

    • Dried basil should be fine, as should a small amount of tomato paste or powder. Just don’t get the consistency too thick, or that will impair heat transfer and could lead to unsafe canning conditions.

      Reply

  37. HI, New at canning and diabetic, eat Low Carb HIgh Fat. Can I leave out the sugar or sub a natural sweetner like stevia?

    Reply

    • I don’t have one on the site. To safely water bath can tomatoes, you need to add lemon juice, which changes the flavor, or citric acid, which has less impact on flavor. You can safely water bath can plain tomato sauce by adding 1 tablespoon lemon juice per pint (2 tablespoons per quart). Process pints 35 minutes and quarts 40 minutes in a water bath canner.

      Reply

  41. My sauce is extremely runny despite cooking it down forever. Is it safe to add cornstarch to thicken prior to canning? I might add that some of my tomatoes were previously frozen and some were fresh. It measured about 30+ pounds. And if I omit the mushrooms do I have to add another cup of peppers, celery, or onions?

    Reply

    • You don’t need to add addition peppers, celery or onions.

      If all you have available for thickening is corn starch, it’s better to wait to thicken until after canning. Corn starch may clump during canning. A better alternative is UltraGel or ClearGel, which is specifically made not to clump during canning.

      Reply

        • You’re welcome. We need to tackle garden chores and cleaning this afternoon (our open house is coming up soon), but I know others are working on weekend projects, too.

          Another option for thickening is plain tomato powder, which you can buy in bulk. I usually order Frontier organic tomato powder (amazon link). Sometimes I add very finely shredded dehydrated zucchini, too. It crumbles up and dissolves right into the sauce. More on that here – https://commonsensehome.com/extra-zucchini/

          If I use all paste tomatoes, the sauce turns out thicker. With a mix of tomato types, or if the weather has been rainy, it’s tough to get it as thick as we prefer with just cooking it down.

          Reply

  42. Hi there.
    So I’m interested in trying your recipe but I would love to add olives without decreasing the other vegetables. I understand that this would offset the approved acidic level that you have. What would I need to do to bring it back into balance? More tomatoes? Longer processing time? And thoughts or suggestions?

    Thank you.

    Reply

    • Add them when you heat the sauce for serving? That would be the simplest. With pressure canning, there is some wiggle room in the pH (because it’s used with low acid foods), but I’m hesitant to make specific recommendations because your sauce might be thicker or thinner, or… You can probably add a cup or so, but I sure as heck don’t want to be responsible for someone mixing up something that get’s them sick.

      The big thing to watch for is that you don’t get whatever your canning so thick that it can’t move freely in the jar. (Pumpkin butter, for instance, is not recommended for canning, but pumpkin chunks in water are fine because the water can circulate the heat.)

      Reply

  44. Does the size of the chopped mushrooms or celery or onion make a difference? Could they be pulverized with an immersion blender to “hide” them from my kids but still have the taste?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

★☆ ★☆ ★☆ ★☆ ★☆

Terms of Use - Privacy Policy - Disclosure