How to preserve homemade tomato sauce
There are several methods for preserving homemade tomato sauce, allowing you to make healthy pasta sauces from fresh tomato products and use them year-round. This is a great way to have a better product, one that uses olive oil instead of canola and minimal sugar, for example, than what’s available in mass market production. Spaghetti sauce can be frozen or packaged (canned) for best results. With highly acidic tomatoes, a water bath may work; typically, however, pressure canning is necessary.
A good way to start is to make a double batch when making tomato sauce for pasta as part of the regular family menu. After dinner, freeze any leftover sauce in a tightly closed freezer container. Be sure to leave enough headspace (space above the sauce under the lid) to allow for expansion while freezing. This is a simple and painless way to get extra ketchup in the freezer, one batch at a time. Another idea is to make a quadruple batch of your regular sauce and freeze it all in four separate containers so that you can only scoop out enough for one meal at a time.
Having frozen sauces on hand, fully prepared with spices, meat, and vegetables as desired, is super convenient for weeknight meal prep, even with busy lives and schedules. The sauce can be thawed in the fridge a couple of days ahead of time, or taken out a few hours before dinner for last-minute menu items.
When using frozen tomato sauce, allow it to thaw at room temperature or place the frozen sauce in a saucepan over low heat until it is completely liquid again; then turn up the heat to bring the sauce to the desired heat. Slow cooking, set to low, is another way to gently bring canned sauce from its frozen state to an edible temperature. Turn the level up to medium or high for the last 30 minutes if necessary.
Canning tomato sauce is a great way to preserve your tomatoes while saving freezer space and allowing for long-term storage. Modern canning techniques and standards make this a safe endeavor. Highly acid tomatoes can be preserved using water bath canning methods, but sauce made with oil, spices, and other ingredients should be pressure canned as the acidity level changes with added ingredients. Spaghetti sauce with meat must always, without exception, be canned with a pressure canner. Any product with meat or meat-based broth needs to be pressure canned to be a safe product.
