How to Make and Freeze Fresh Tomato Sauce
This recipe for How to Make and Freeze Fresh Tomato Sauce is one I used for years when I had a big garden that produced lots of tomatoes!
PIN How to Make and Freeze Fresh Tomato Sauce to try it later!
A lot of people are into canning tomato sauce, but I’ve been able to successfully avoid the home canning impulse for quite a few years now, even though most of my family has that gene. I prefer the flavor of frozen tomatoes to canned, and always freeze slow roasted tomatoes and Sausage and Basil Marinara Sauce every year which I make from garden tomatoes.
The recipe I’m posting here is for the sauce that I make when I’ve already made roasted tomatoes, marinara sauce, and eaten tomato salads for weeks and the garden is still producing tomatoes! It’s nothing more than plain tomato sauce, but oh what flavor when you make the sauce yourself from tomatoes still warm from the sun and picked the day you make the sauce.
Do you have to peel the tomatoes?
The most inspiring thing about my recipe is the flash of brilliance I had when I realized that you don’t have to peel the tomatoes. You can put them in a food processor and puree everything, and then when you cook them the peeling disintegrates into the sauce for brighter tomato color and more flavor.
What if you don’t want tomato seeds in the sauce?
This method will produce a rather rustic tomato sauce which still has the seeds. You can use a food mill (affiliate link) to remove seeds when you defrost the sauce if you’re making something where you want a more pure type of sauce.
How long will the fresh tomato sauce keep in the freezer?
This sauce will keep at least a year in the freezer if it’s in containers with a snap-tight lid.
How do I use this versatile sauce?
Freezing the sauce without seasonings creates endless possibilities for using it. Add garlic, oregano, basil, or other seasonings when you use the sauce to create soups, stews, pasta sauces, or other dishes this winter.
How to Make and Freeze Fresh Tomato Sauce
This recipe for How to Make and Freeze Fresh Tomato Sauce is one I used for years when I had a big garden that produced lots of tomatoes!
Ingredients
- use about 6 large tomatoes for each cup of sauce
Instructions
- It’s important to use tomatoes that are well-ripened and it’s best to pick them the day you make the sauce if that’s an option.
- I’d estimate that it takes about 6 large tomatoes to make a cup of sauce, but make as much as you can because this tastes wonderful in the winter when you’re dying for the flavor of fresh tomatoes.
- Put tomatoes in the sink and rinse well with cold water.
- Cut out stem area of each tomato and discard.
- Cut each tomato into pieces about 1 inch square. (Don’t make the pieces too large or the tomatoes won’t puree easily.)
- Using the food processor with the steel blade, puree diced tomatoes in batches and add to large heavy stock pot. The puree should be nearly all liquidized when you add it to the pot.
- Turn the heat as low as you can get it and cook the mixture until it is reduced by at least one half and as thick as you want it.
- I usually cook my sauce at least 6 hours to condense it down to the thickness I want. Your house will smell delightfully tomato-like while you cook this.
- I like to use a rubber scraper to scrape off the caramelized tomato that sticks to the side of the pot as the level decreases and do that about once every half hour.
- When sauce is condensed and thick, put into individual plastic containers and let cool on the counter for an hour or so.
- When sauce is cooled, snap on plastic lids and freeze.
- This will last for at least a year in the freezer. When you’re using the sauce, if you want a more pure tomato sauce that doesn’t have any seeds you can put it through the food mill after it’s thawed.
- Freezing the sauce this way with no added seasonings at all creates endless possibilities for using it. Add garlic, oregano, basil, or any other seasonings you want when you use the sauce to create soups, stews, pasta sauces, or other dishes this winter.
Find More Recipes Like This One:
Use Sauce Recipes for more ideas like this one. Use the Diet Type Index to find more recipes suitable for a specific eating plan. You can also Follow Kalyn’s Kitchen on Pinterest to see all the good recipes I’m sharing there.
Historical Notes for this Recipe:
This recipe was first posted in 2006, and I have made this type of sauce many, many times though the years (although now I sometimes have to buy tomatoes at the Farmers Market). The recipe was last updated with more information in 2021.
108 Comments on “How to Make and Freeze Fresh Tomato Sauce”
Thanks so much for this recipe! I have been looking for a recipe for homemade tomato sauce for some time. It turned out GREAT! I hope you don't mind that I shared a link to this post on my blog.
I have been looking for a simple way to use the abundance of tomatoes I have and have been wanting to try a homeade tomato sauce. I can't wait to try this today!!! Thank you for making this recipe available.
this looks so simple to do! definitely looking forward to doing this this year with our tomatoes! thanks so much for sharing. 🙂
To the person who has left a comment telling me I’m making this sauce the wrong way, I don’t believe there is only one way to do things in the kitchen. Yes, you can core and peel the tomatoes. That’s one way to make tomato sauce. This is another method. I’ve made sauce that I enjoyed using this method, and apparently so have others (if you read the comments.) Feel free to use any method you like, but don’t visit my blog and tell me I have to cook things your way.
Absolutely! There is usually more than one way of doing things and creativity is the name of the game in cooking. Its what separates cooks from great cooks! Love your method and plan to use it this week When making my sauce for freezing Thank you!
Phil, I cook it with the lid off so the water can evaporate and concentrate the sauce. I also like to take a rubber scraper and scrape off the carmelized tomato that makes a ring around the top of the pot as it cooks, so this gets incorporated into the sauce too. Thanks for the questions! I should have mentioned that.
Does it matter whether I leave the top of the cooking pot on or off during this 6-8 hour slow coo?
Hour 3 with top on,
Phil
Glaucia, so glad it worked well for you, thanks for letting me know.
Wow! Thanks for this recipe. I just made the tomato sauce and the roasted tomatoes as per your suggestions, and am so glad that I’ll have plenty of fresh tomatoes to use throughout the winter. Thanks for sharing this. It was exactly what I was looking for.
I’m going to give your sauce a try. I’ve got tomatoes coming out my ears, and not enough people to give them to! This looks so simple and easy – and eliminates having to skin & seed – yuck! Thanks – and I’ll let you know how it turns out.
I didn’t plant any tomatoes this year but my aunt just sent me a photo of all the tomatoes her plants are producing this year. I think I’ll forward this to her!
Anonymous, heirloom tomatoes would be fine. You could use a crock pot for some of the cooking, but I think you’d have to reduce it on the stove at the end of the time.
Heirloom tomatoes are delicious & so plentiful this time of year. I have never used them for anything besides salads, do you think they would work well for this sauce?
Also, do you think this recipe will work if you let it cook down in a crock pot w. the lid off so the sauce can reduce?
Great idea, Kalyn! I’ll be trying this with my tomatoes. I do like the idea of not having to can them.
oooh, i did this too!
except i passed them through the food mill and just froze the puree
i’m waiting for the first real day of winter, then i’ll pull out my frozen ‘maters and some frozen herb/garlic moosh i made and craft a huuuuuge! pot of marinara sauce that will still taste of summer
it almost makes me look forward to winter!
It´s such great idea to preserve all that summer goodness. Normally I slow roast the tomatoes, but this sounds very good too.
Scott and Gattina, I’ve made it both ways and haven’t really noticed any difference in the sauce with seeds or without. I think the long cooking of the tomatoes brings out the sweetness. Of course you could take out the seeds if you want, this is just something I tried once on a whim and I’ve been doing it this way ever since.
Yet again this foodblog introduces me to another new concept, this time the “Green Blog Project” – something I’m going to have to get involved with.
(Gattina) – I also find the seeds can make sauces bitter, however a touch of sugar soon rectifies this.
Nice simple recipe by the way.
Kalyn,
I was told that the seed make the sauce slightly bitter, so I firstly cook the cut tomatoes briefly, them push them through a sieve to catch all the seed and skin, then continue to cook the sauce… but after seeing your post, about the seed thing may not be true huh?
Mimi, I know what you mean. Homemade sauce is just better!
I made tomato sauce recently and it was the best I’ve ever tasted (she said modestly).