How many of you make your own homemade seasoned tomato sauce? I’ve been making my own sauce for the past 15 years! We have a backyard garden and always have plenty of tomatoes. What’s really cool about making it this way is that you can make a batch with as few as 10-12 large tomatoes or make a bigger batch with as many tomatoes that you have. Once you have it made…you can decide if you want preserve it by home canning or place it into your freezer. Either method works well.

* A Complimentary Bottle of GOYA Olive Oil was received & used in this recipe. This post contains affiliate links. See disclosure located below.

How to Make Homemade Tomato Sauce

1. Wash tomatoes. Place them in a big pot of boiling, salted water. Boil them for 2 minutes. Use a big spoon to fish them out and put them in a colander under cold running water to help cool them down. Once they are cool enough to handle, use your hands to gently peel off their skins.

2. Cut the tomatoes in half and then in quarters. Under a light running stream of water, rinse away the seeds. You will get most seeds out of there that way, but not all of them. A few seeds don’t bother us at all.

3. Put the tomato pulp into a blender. I use my NINJA because I find it does a fabulous job at processing the tomatoes into a fine sauce. Cover and blend for about 20 seconds or until all of the chunks are gone.

4. In a small skillet saute some chopped onion and green bell pepper in 1 to 2 tablespoons of GOYA Extra Virgin Olive Oil until the onions and peppers are cooked. I’m really picky about my olive oil, so I always use GOYA Extra Virgin Olive Oil when making my homemade tomato sauces.

5. Place the tomato sauce into a large pan. Stir in the sauteed onions and bell peppers. Add in basil, oregano, salt, ground black pepper, red pepper flakes, 1-2 tablespoons of GOYA Extra Virgin Olive Oil and granulated sugar according to your own taste buds. Simmer this mixture over low heat for 15-19 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Remove from heat.

6. Now your sauce is done. You can “can it” according to home canning instructions and using your water bath canner or let it completely cool and pour it into labeled freezer containers. You can find my personal step by step instructions on that HERE.

When I’m making up a large batch I will get out all of my home canning supplies and preserve it that way. If I have a small batch, I will pour my sauce into pint-size or quart-size mason jars, let it cool and then place them into my freezer. Both methods work extremely well.

I use this sauce when I’m making pasta dishes (spaghetti, lasagna, baked ziti, etc.), when I’m making a homemade tomato-based vegetable soup, making a meatloaf, stromboli’s, homemade pizzas, etc. It’s very versatile and you can spice it up and add to it once you decide which recipe you’re using it in. I will often add mushrooms, additional onions & peppers, ground beef, more spices, etc. Once I decide on which recipe I’m using my sauce in.

* This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, we may or may not receive a small commission which helps to support this site. A complimentary bottle of GOYA Extra Virgin Olive Oil was received and used in this recipe. No monetary compensation was received. 

Twenty years ago my Father-in-Law introduced me to home canning and one of the very first things that I learned to process and can was pickled red beets. Once I had mastered the beets, we moved on to various veggies, then to fruits, jams & jellies and then to soups & stews. My Father-in-Law was one of the best home canners that I ever knew! Sadly, he passed away about ten years ago, but I still continue to expand my home canning knowledge.

Here is the recipe that I use when I make a batch of homemade fruit cocktail. You can change-up the fresh fruits to whatever you like and to whatever is currently in-season. I listed below the fruits that I used when making this batch. Once processed correctly, it will keep for up to 1 year.

Home Canning – Fruit Cocktail Recipe

6 to 9 lbs. fresh fruit (green seedless grapes, peaches, pears, cherries, pineapple, nectarines and yellow plums are what I used for this particular batch).

1 batch canning syrup – I use light and the recipe is below

Prep: Wash fruit under cold running water, drain. Peel fruit and remove pits and/or seeds. Cut fruit into 1/2″ chunks except for the cherries and the grapes.

Cook: Prepare syrup (recipe below) in a large saucepan and bring to a full boil over medium to high heat. Cook fruit in syrup just until all of the fruit is hot.

Fill: Pack the hot fruit into a hot canning jar and ladle hot syrup on top…leaving 1/2″ headspace at the top. Clean jar rims, add the seal and band until it’s finger-tip tight. Place jar on elevated rack over simmering water in your boiling water bath canner. Repeat until all jars are filled.

Process: Lower rack into simmering water. Turn up the heat and bring water to a full boil. Make sure water covers the top of your jars by at least 1″. Process your jars in boiling water (pint jars for 20 minutes and quart jars for 25 minutes). Turn off the heat and let the jars sit in the hot water for an additional 5 minutes. Remove them from the canner and let them cool. In a few hours double check all seals to make sure they sealed properly. Please use a timer while processing, as you never want to over-cook or under-cook when it comes to home canning.

Light Canning Syrup Recipe

In a large saucepan combine together 5 3/4 cups of water and 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar. Heat over medium heat until all of the sugar has dissolved. Keep the syrup hot (on a low temperature) until you are ready to use it.

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