How To Can Whole Tomatoes (Video Tutorial)

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Canning tomatoes is a valuable homestead skill that allows you to quickly and easily preserve tomatoes for your homestead pantry.  Canned tomatoes can be used in so many recipes like soups and stews and they can also be easily made into things like spaghetti sauce, enchilada sauce or homemade tomato soup.  Having lots of canned tomatoes on hand gives me lots of meal options during the winter when there’s no fresh produce coming from our garden.  There’s nothing quite like the flavor that home canned tomatoes gives to all of my winter recipes.  They make the very best chili, vegetable stew and taco soup!

Canning tomatoes is a basic process that is easy to learn and great for someone who is a beginner with canning.  When you are successful at canning simple things like tomatoes and jelly, it will give you the confidence to go on and learn how to can other things like glazed carrots and pickled beets or spaghetti sauce and salsa.  To find all of our families favorite canning recipes and video tutorials, check out the “preserve your own food” section of our website.

Simple Ingredients

Tomatoes

Garden fresh ripe tomatoes are the very best for canning because you are getting the highest quality nutrition when you preserve a fruit or vegetable within hours of it being picked.  However, you can also purchase tomatoes in bulk from your local farmers market.  Often farmers will sell seconds, which are tomatoes that have a small blemish or aren’t big enough to be a slicing tomato, and they will offer these at a cheaper rate as canning tomatoes.  Purchasing from a farmers market is a great way to preserve a lot of canned tomato products like ketchup, salsa, and BBQ sauce in your pantry without having to grow a lot of tomatoes.  You can also order tomatoes in bulk from my favorite online bulk food store Azure Standard.  To learn more about growing all of your own food, check out the gardening section of our website.  Any kind of tomatoes will work for canning whole tomatoes, including roma tomatoes and heirloom tomatoes.

Salt

Redmond real salt from Azure standard is my preferred salt, but you can use whatever salt you have on hand.

Lemon Juice (optional)

If your tomatoes aren’t very acidic, you can add lemon juice to increase the acidity level.

FAQ

What is the best way to can fresh tomatoes?

The best way to can fresh tomatoes is to blanch them in hot water, remove the skins and then pack into jars with a little bit of salt.  The tomatoes will make their own juice as they cook in the jar during the canning process.

Is canning or freezing better for tomatoes?

You can preserve tomatoes by either canning or freezing.  Canning is the preferred method of preserving tomatoes because they are shelf stable and don’t require electricity to keep the freezer running.  Canned tomatoes also can’t get freezer burned like they will if they are in the freezer for longer than 6 months.  I sometimes freeze tomatoes on a short term basis if I’m really busy during the tomato harvest season, and then I take them out of the freezer on a cold winter day and can them.

Do you really need lemon juice when canning tomatoes?

If you are canning old-fashioned heirloom tomatoes that are naturally higher in acid, then you don’t need to add lemon juice to your tomatoes.  If you are canning hybrid tomatoes that have a lower acidity level, you should add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice to each pint jar, and 2 Tablespoons of bottled lemon juice to each quart jar of tomatoes.  This will give the additional acid necessary for a safe acidity level.  If in doubt, feel free to add the lemon juice.  I always grow a lot of heirloom tomatoes so I don’t ever add the lemon juice.

Do you have to cook down tomatoes before canning?

No you do not have to cook down tomatoes before canning.  You can raw pack them into jars and they will cook during the canning process.

What is the easiest way to preserve fresh tomatoes?

The easiest way to preserve fresh tomatoes is by canning them whole, or by making them into home canned spaghetti sauce.  When I am overwhelmed with tomatoes in the summer months, I will usually make one of these two things.  The other thing you can do is core them and put them into freezer bags and freeze until winter when there is more time to process them into sauce or canned whole tomatoes.

Is it better to water bath or pressure can tomatoes?

Tomatoes do not need to be pressure canned.  Tomatoes are acidic enough that water bath canning is perfectly safe.  This is one reason why canning whole tomatoes is so quick and easy to do.  No need to buy a pressure canner just for tomatoes!  I use my pressure canner for meat, broth, green beans, carrots and vegetable soup.

Tips For Canning Tomatoes

• If you are in a big hurry, just core your raw tomatoes, put them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze until the winter months when you have more time for canning.  If you freeze your tomatoes before canning them, you don’t have to blanch them to remove the skins.  When you thaw them out, the skins will just slip right off.  Then you can put them right into jars with the salt and process in a boiling water bath canner.  Simple and easy.
• Use your larger tomatoes for canning into whole tomatoes and your smaller tomatoes for making into home canned spaghetti sauce or salsa.
• If in doubt as to what to do with all of your extra tomatoes, just can them whole as shown in this tutorial.  Then you can easily make them into whatever else you might run out of in your pantry as the year goes on.  Home-canned tomatoes can easily be made into a lot of sauces or soups to feed and nourish your family.  
• Any kind of tomatoes will work for canning whole.  The larger ones are easier to peel, but I can lots of different colors and varieties of tomatoes including heirlooms and hybrids together and I love the depth of flavor that it gives to my recipes.

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Tools You May Need For Canning Whole Tomatoes

Wide mouth quart canning jars (quart jars are my preference)

Or 

Wide mouth pint canning jars

Canning Lids & Rings – my favorite canning lids are from For Jars.  They always give me the best seal rate.

Large pot

Slotted spoon

Large bowls

Water bath canner

Jar lifter

Camp chef outdoor stove – the best way to do your canning outside.

How to Can Whole Tomatoes

Wash jars and allow to air dry upside down.

Fill a large pot on the stove half full with hot water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.

In the meantime, fill a large bowl half full of ice water and place near your jars.

Also get a smaller bowl ready to hold your tomato peels and cores.

Wash tomatoes and remove any bad spots from your tomatoes and gently place into the pot of boiling water.  Don’t overflow the pot.  I usually just put in as many as I can put in quickly so they cook evenly.

Leave them in the hot water until the skin starts to slip off, usually less than a minute.  Sometimes it takes a little longer if your tomatoes aren’t super ripe.

Remove the tomatoes from the boiling water using a slotted spoon and place in the bowl full of ice water.

As soon as the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, slip the skins off with your hands and cut the core out using a knife (see video below).

Place the peeled and cored tomatoes into the jars and press them down so they make their own juice.

Fill the jars to within ½ inch of the top of the jar.  It’s important to leave this ½ inch of headspace so that the jars will seal properly.  

Add ½ teaspoon of salt to each pint jar or 1 teaspoon of salt to each quart jar of tomatoes.

If you are canning less acidic hybrid tomatoes, you’re probably going to want to add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice to each pint, or 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice to each quart of tomatoes. I have never done this because I’m always canning a good mix of heirloom and hybrid tomatoes that have lots of acidity. If in doubt, add the lemon juice, although they’ll probably be fine either way.

Canning Process

Carefully wipe the rim of each jar with a damp cloth to make sure there is no salt or tomato juice on the rim.

Place the lids and rings on the jars and hand tighten.

Fill your boiling-water canner ⅓ full of water and bring to a boil on your stovetop or camp chef outdoor stove.  It will boil faster if you put the lid on the pot.

Place jars of tomatoes in the water-bath canner, making sure the water level is just to the bottom of the ring on each jar.  This will help to prevent siphoning which sometimes happens if the water is over the top of the jars.  It’s okay to add or take away water from the canner as necessary.

Place the canner lid back on the pot and bring the water back to a boil.  Once it starts to boil set your timer for 25 minutes.  Reduce the heat so the canner stays at a steady boil.  The processing time is the same for both quarts and pints.

At the end of 20 minutes remove the jars from the boiling water canner using the jar lifter.  I usually place them on an old towel to catch any of the water drips.

Allow jars to cool and seal at room temperature for 12-24 hours. 

Remove rings, and label the jars with the year they were canned.

Place on your pantry shelf where they will keep for at least 1-2 years.

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