Lazy tomato sauce

It's the end of summer. Time to can up all the tomatoes you can get your hands on for the long winter ahead. I put this in cooking rather than food preservation because I'm going to gloss over the actual canning part - I don't want your botulism on my head. Just do it the way granny taught you and you'll be fine. My focus is the easy, low-effort way I make the sauce itself by roasting everything in the oven. No boiling over, no burning on the bottom, minimal stirring.

Preheat your oven to 350. Start by coarsely chopping about 6 lbs of tomatoes (cut out the stem ends and any ooky bits) and an onion. Put everything in a big lidded roasting pan and add a few garlic cloves, a couple tablespoons of salt, a glug of olive oil, and a glug of balsamic vinegar.



Put the lid on the roaster and bake for an hour or so. When you open it up, you'll have something like this:



Doesn't look like a lot has changed, but give it a stir and it's more like this (cameo by the spoon my sweetie made me):



Leave the lid off this time, and give it another half hour in the oven to break down and condense.



Now it's time to add a handful of fresh basil or herbs of your choice and hit the whole thing with the immersion blender. You could also blend in batches in a regular blender, or maybe do a coarse mash with a potato masher, but I like my tomato sauce pretty saucy and smooth. Give it another half hour with no lid in the oven.



Now, time to taste and check your seasoning levels. Adjust as necessary, remembering that herbs can become more pronounced in storage. Probably better to go light now and add more when you cook. It's also time to check pH because some tomatoes can teeter on the edge of safety for water bath canning, and you did add some onion and garlic and stuff. I use cheap litmus paper and just barely touch the back of the paper to a little sauce on a spoon to wet it. You don't want the color of the sauce itself confusing your reading. You want a pH around 4. If you're higher than that, add acid in the form of vinegar, lemon juice or the like a little at a time until you're where you want to be.



Give it one last half hour in the oven to condense a little more, and for the seasonings to blend in. In the mean time, get your canning kettle boiling and your jars ready. When it looks like this, take it out of the oven, give it a good stir, and can the way granny or the internet taught you.



Makes about 5 pints.



So yes, the cook time is about two and a half hours, plus canning time, but you only have to get up four times to tend to it and you don't even have to think about it between timer beeps.

Great! This truly is the easiest way to store your tomatoes. I also love to add bell peppers in the mixture, nut I'm not sure they will cook well with your method. After all, you do puree them on a later stage. Have you tried adding peppers?

My only concern with bell peppers would be one of pH. If you puree them in, you'll probably need more acid in the mix to keep the pH around 4. If you leave them in chunks, I would worry about whether the acid in the sauce was fully permeating the chunks. Probably best to go for a pressure can if there will be chunks.

*I am not a food scientist, just a home cook*

A method I saw recently was to throw all your tomatoes into bags in the freezer for a few days. Take them out to thaw and most if the water drains out. Then pass through a tomato crusher to remove seeds and skins for a concentrated to pulp ready for canning.

I like to make what I call fresh tomato sauce when I make meat loaf.  I put the tomatoes, bell peppers and onion into a blender and blend them into a sauce.

I was planning to do that with my excess tomatoes yesterday.  Then I found this thread for the daily-ish and decided to try her method. Though I used the crockpot instead of the oven.  The sauce turned out great and I just finished putting the jars in my freezer instead of canning.  Like the title said lazy and also easy!

love this idea. I think I will try it with my roaster oven so not to heat up my kitchen as much. Sounds tasty.

Anne Miller wrote:I used the crockpot instead of the oven.

I do this as well, except I don`t bother with the mashing or the pH.
once it`s nice and done (usually overnight on low) I run it through the Omega juicer to take out the skins and seeds, and freeze it in pints (or alternatively, use as tomato juice, soup, red sauce, etc). When tomatoes are very cheap I do this as often as possible.

My fave is to dehydrate the tomatoes.  The taste is very superior [IMHO] to canned sauce, I suspect because you don't boil the daylights [and the vitamins] out of them. It is also a great way to use less energy making it and storing it too. And if the weather cooperates, you won't even need a dehydrator.
I'm too lazy to peel them, but I cut them thin, shake the seeds out, or scoop them. {I don't like the seeds much and my chickens go bonkers for the seeds.}. When you remove the seeds, some of the juice around the seeds will go out too, which means it will take less time to dry the slices.
Dry the slices until they are snappy. Not much work there: Fill the trays, plug in and walk away. [I start them in the evening and let them dry out until morning, longer if it is humid]. At the leathery stage you will already have a great product, but it will be harder to turn into tomato power] then take small amounts at a time an pop them in the blender to powder them. This way, they won't "cake" in your blender. You will never notice the skins [which is a healthy part of the tomato too but my hubby does not like them - and I'm sneaky].
Since you are at drying, you may want to do the same thing to your basil, garlic and whatever else you normally put in your tomato sauce. Blend the whole thing together or dry all the ingredients separately. (I have not done it with mushrooms because the seasons do not coincide, but hey, why not, if you dry mushrooms? I suspect mushrooms might taste stronger in storage, so go easy on dried mushrooms or use your canned mushrooms.
Place them in airtight containers away from light. If you suspect you didn't dry them enough, you could freeze the product, but why use more energy to get your delicious tomato sauce?
To reconstitute, just add some water stir and heat up: They will taste more like fresh because technically, you only cook them a little when you reconstitute the tomato sauce. And you can make the sauce as thick as you want without the risk of scorching. You can even heat it in the microwave. You can sprinkle generously on a commercial pizza you need to "doctor up". It will give it a great kick.
If you store them in a quart jar or bigger, you can take out just what you want and reseal too, so less waste.

I maked it. It is so tasty

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:My fave is to dehydrate the tomatoes.  The taste is very superior [IMHO] to canned sauce, I suspect because you don't boil the daylights [and the vitamins] out of them. It is also a great way to use less energy making it and storing it too. And if the weather cooperates, you won't even need a dehydrator.
I'm too lazy to peel them, but I cut them thin, shake the seeds out, or scoop them. {I don't like the seeds much and my chickens go bonkers for the seeds.}. When you remove the seeds, some of the juice around the seeds will go out too, which means it will take less time to dry the slices.
Dry the slices until they are snappy. Not much work there: Fill the trays, plug in and walk away. [I start them in the evening and let them dry out until morning, longer if it is humid]. At the leathery stage you will already have a great product, but it will be harder to turn into tomato power] then take small amounts at a time an pop them in the blender to powder them. This way, they won't "cake" in your blender. You will never notice the skins [which is a healthy part of the tomato too but my hubby does not like them - and I'm sneaky].
Since you are at drying, you may want to do the same thing to your basil, garlic and whatever else you normally put in your tomato sauce. Blend the whole thing together or dry all the ingredients separately. (I have not done it with mushrooms because the seasons do not coincide, but hey, why not, if you dry mushrooms? I suspect mushrooms might taste stronger in storage, so go easy on dried mushrooms or use your canned mushrooms.
Place them in airtight containers away from light. If you suspect you didn't dry them enough, you could freeze the product, but why use more energy to get your delicious tomato sauce?
To reconstitute, just add some water stir and heat up: They will taste more like fresh because technically, you only cook them a little when you reconstitute the tomato sauce. And you can make the sauce as thick as you want without the risk of scorching. You can even heat it in the microwave. You can sprinkle generously on a commercial pizza you need to "doctor up". It will give it a great kick.
If you store them in a quart jar or bigger, you can take out just what you want and reseal too, so less waste.

Very interesting Cecile!  

I make it basically the same way except I have wine, herbs, garlic and onion in with my tomatoes. The flavor is magnificent! Then I just blend them up with the skin and can it.

today on my way from buying a couple hundred pounds of dirt (as one does) I saw a sign hanging by my favorite greengrocer advertising tomatoes for a fifth of the usual price (they buy locally and often get these crazy deals to encourage people to come in).
I bought 8 kg of tomatoes... specifically for lazy sauce and tomato juice!! I assume you folks brought me luck with this thread, because these deals are SO RARE lately. (in the store, it looked just like when you throw fish feed into a very crowded pond, with all of us tightwads snapping up many pounds of tomatoes)

I made this a few days ago for the first time. Delicious! And so simple! It's going to be my go-to tomato sauce recipe moving forward. If only I could scale it up to make a full rack of quart jars at once, but my oven isn't really large enough.

Anne Miller wrote:I like to make what I call fresh tomato sauce when I make meat loaf.  I put the tomatoes, bell peppers and onion into a blender and blend them into a sauce.

I was planning to do that with my excess tomatoes yesterday.  Then I found this thread for the daily-ish and decided to try her method. Though I used the crockpot instead of the oven.  The sauce turned out great and I just finished putting the jars in my freezer instead of canning.  Like the title said lazy and also easy!

Just discovered this thread due to me being flabbergasted by learning that so many people peel tomatoes and remove the seeds😆 I figured i would search Permies and be able to find someone who refuses to be bothered by fiber and flavor. I think if our grandmothers had blenders, they wouldn’t have peeled tomatoes either. As for the seeds, i cant imagine why people remove them. Unless they are sugar addicts like I used to be and despise all flavors that have any hint of bitterness. But bitter is good, especially in modern sugar craving society.

I just made a bunch of tomato sauce and will need to do another batch or two within the next few weeks or so. I refuse to call it a “lazy” recipe because I’m in no way lazy. I just can’t just throwing edible skins and seeds away because thats half the tomato! Heres my process:

Take whatever tomatoes that need to be used up first and trim off the stems and weird spots. I use any and all varieties for a good mix of flavor. This year its cherry tomatoes, amish paste tomatoes and purple cherokee tomatoes (the best tomato I’ve ever eaten so far!). Then I stuff them into our Ninja blender and pulse just enough to mostly liquify them. Then I fill a slow cooker and set to high with the lid on. Once it gets hot I remove the lid so water can evaporate quickly as possible. Then I go about my business and set a timer for 30 minutes increments to give it a stir. Probably could get away with hour increments. Once it reduces somewhat, I add salt, onions and garlic. Once it reduces to almost being the consistency I want, i add herbs. This year was basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary and sage. Once its the consistency I want, I cool it all off, jar it and freeze it. It could be canned too, but our canner needs work and I was roofing at the time, so freezer it is.

Seeds and skins (the blender takes care of them) were no issue to me or my wife. I dont mind flavor, but I know some people want everything sweet. My wife’s aunt actually adds brown sugar to her spaghetti sauce…

I agree, there isn't much of lazy: it's still more work than most non-permie people i know would go through.

Honestly, for cooking I never take off skins (even though almost all chinese recipes i use call for me to do so), and whether i use the seeds or not depends. I want my sauce to be as thick as possible and sometimes getting rid of the seeds (in a pan sauce, for example) helps with that; sometimes i want all that flavorful seed liquid. Never considered that it makes things any sweeter.

If I use the omega (or, i would imagine, a food mill), my oval crockpot full of tomatoes ends up containing maybe about an eighth of a cup of seeds/skins. Thanks to Jocelyn's (i think it was her i got it from) method of ladling out the water during cooking, i can get a nice, thick sauce that doesn't need much time on the stove when it's time to finalize with garlic and spices.

Thanks, Brody for reviving this thread.

Just the other day I was looking through the jars of stuff in my freezer and saw one labeled "lazy tomato sauce". Now I know what it is...

It has been decades since I have bothered to remove the skins and seeds from caned tomatoes.

This past year we managed to go the entire year from summer to summer without using any [out of season, tasteless] commercial tomatoes. We had dried a lot and canned a lot in two methods.

1) Dried tomatoes, with seeds and skins. BTW, drying them in halves or radial sections rather than flat slices prevents sticking and is way easier. I use the smaller pieces whole, thrown into stews and soups and curries, or semi-rehydrated and put into olive oil. I grind up the larger pieces, complete with skins and seeds, for intensely yummy tomato powder.

2) I roast tomato halves in the oven much like the original post of this thread, but then I pinch the skins off, mostly, and stuff them in jars and can them in 400 ml (~ pint) jars. Optional add salt, fresh basil and minimal onion and garlic, or add them at the time of use. Very delicious and elegant sauce later in the winter or spring, in my opinion. But it uses lots of oven time, so I only do a few batches.

3) I cook tomatoes until soft in a big pot. (First wash and cut into chunks). After they're soft I run them through a hand-cranked food mill to remove the seeds and skins and get a clean red puree, with some scraped smaller bits of seed and skin. Optionally, simmer the seeds and skins, and re-run them through the food mill to get the last bits of flavor off them. Then simmer that down a bit more on stovetop or oven, and can it in 200 ml jars (~ half-pint). I don't thicken it to "tomato paste" because that spatters too much, and the liquid puree is just as good to use. My Indian housemate claims it makes curries much more delicious than if commercial tomato puree is used, and I use it to fill out the even more delicious but scarce roasted chunks above.