Canning: italian Seasoned Tomato Sauce (& free printable labels)!

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    Let me start off by saying that this will not be your normal tomato sauce canning recipe.  My sweet Italian friend Anita will probably fall over at this recipe because she makes such wonderful stuff from her amazing garden. But, there are a couple of reasons why this recipe needed to be like it is: 

1. I started with frozen tomatoes.  Yup!  You read that right, frozen, WHOLE, tomatoes.  Here is why.  My sister-in-law once told me that when she had an over abundance of tomatoes from her garden and she found that if she threw them in the freezer, she could pull some out, let them defrost a bit and the peels would just slip off.  Then, she could use them for sauce that still tasted just as fresh as they did before they were frozen.   So, when I had more tomatoes than I had time to deal with from my garden at one point, I decided to give her method a try.  Only, I may or may not have left them in the freezer for much longer that she meant when she gave me her suggestion.  But, not wanting to waste them, I decided to see if they would still taste good.  They did and the sauce is great and I am amazed that this process worked out so well!  I just ran hot water over them and started peeling them.  Much of the liquid and seeds comes out naturally as you do this and cut them in half to puree.  I don't mind the seeds that much, but you can strain them out if you want.  I was too lazy to do that.
2. I used the crock pot to make my thick sauce.  I didn't want to have to stand over a pot stirring and stirring my sauce all day during a 111 degree day.  I have a crock pot apple butter recipe, so why not tomato sauce?  So, I used my food processor and put those peeled, frozen tomatoes into it and pureed them.  Since they were still pretty frozen on the inside, the puree looked kind of like a pink tomato ice cream.  But, I threw it all into the crock pot and as it heated up, the color darkened.  I added my seasonings, all dry because I wanted to water bath can them, not pressure can them, set the crock pot to low and cooked it at first with the lid on.   Of course, with  the lid on, the sauce wasn't reducing very quickly, so I removed the lid and turned the temperature up to high heat and let it continue to cook.  I stirred it occasionally.  By the end of the day, it was a nice and thick sauce. 

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A Few More Tips

• The pounds of tomatoes listed in the recipe is an estimate.  Make enough puree to fill your crock pot up to about an inch from the top. 
• I cooked the sauce in the crock pot on one day and then canned it the next.  I heated it up again before putting it in the jars. 
• This recipe gave me 4-1/2  pints of sauce.  If your crock pot is bigger than mine, you will get more.  Be sure to taste the sauce as you go and adjust your seasonings as you go. 
• When you go to put your sauce into your jars, add 2 Tablespoons of bottled lemon juice.  Bottled lemon juice has a standard acidity so you know that it will be right, rather than the juice from fresh lemons whose acidity can vary.  I know you think that tomatoes are acidic enough, but they may not always be, so add the lemon juice to be safe.  Or, you can use citric acid. 
• You could just do plain tomato sauce this way, but I decided to add Italian seasonings. 
• While your jars are processing, print off these free printable labels that I made.  Just add the date. 

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Italian Tomato Sauce Label

Home Canned Italian Tomato Sauce

     Let me know if you give this method a try!