I had a huge garden of tomato plants this last year. So I ended up with lots of tomatoes and wanted to make my own homemade tomato sauce with this abundance of tomatoes.

I first cut up the tomatoes and placed them in a large pot for cooking. I generally followed a vintage tomato sauce recipe where I cut up the tomatoes and let them stand a few minutes in a colander to drain off some of the excess juice. I added a bit of dehydrated green peppers and onions (one tablespoon each), and a sprinkle of cayenne powder for a bit of zing to my pot.

Next, bring to boil and cook for about an hour on low. Remember to stir occasionally until you have a nice pulp. I then used my food mill to make a smooth tomato puree.

I ended up with this lovely pot of tomato puree ready for the next step.

I then added one tablespoon of white vinegar, one tablespoon of sugar, and one teaspoon of salt to my tomato puree. You can also add or subtract any ingredients that you want but this is what I used for the my tomato sauce batch.

Again, bring the pot to a boil and then simmer on low for an hour. Stir often and taste to make sure it’s to your liking.

Fill jars or other containers with the tomato sauce and enjoy your own homemade tomato sauce!

One additional thing I did with some my tomatoes this year was bake the tomato sauce in the oven to make it thicker and more like a paste.

I set the oven at 300 degrees and baked it. I checked it about every 20-30 minutes to stir.

This picture above was taken about half way through. You can see how it caramelizes a bit and you scrap and stir in the sides. I cooked for a few hours to get my sauce to reduce down about half of what I started with. It was much thicker than my sauce which was more runny like a juice.

Here is the final photo of the tomato paste I baked. All and all the tomato sauce and paste was a big success this year and we are still enjoying it this winter.