How to make your own tomato sauce?

[Mama Soltera]

Can I just crush them raw, with the skins on? I'd be happy with crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce. Either will do fine. Thanks for any help. These are medium to small sized tomatoes (though much larger than cherry types, of course).

[Arduinna]

My mind is drawing a blank on the correct term right now but I prefer to blanch them like you do peaches to loosen the skins and then use the food mill for making crushed tomatoes or sauce.

[Purple Sage]

Originally Posted by Arduinna

My mind is drawing a blank on the correct term right now but I prefer to blanch them like you do peaches to loosen the skins and then use the food mill for making crushed tomatoes or sauce.

Concasse?

[Annie Mac]

What I do is core, blanch and peel (just like that concasse video showed, I never knew the term for it before), then throw them into a pot and cook them down, mashing as you go along. Low heat, uncovered, for several hours. Then you can add whatever you want -- veggies and spices for spag sauce or spicy things for salsa, etc.

[greenmulberry]

You really should remove the skins. They come off while cooking and roll up into unpleasant little twigs in the sauce.

Do this by making a little X with a knife on the bottom, drop the tomatos in lightly boiling water for a few minutes. You will see the skin start to roll away where you made the X.

Then drop them in ice water. I fill the sink with water and some ice. Once you have them all in the ice water, you can easily slip the skins off and cut out the little core by the stem.

I make a basic sauce by heating some olive oil, then putting in some minced garlic and onion. Before the garlic and onion browns (you just want to start to smell it, but NOT brown) add the tomatoes. You can crush them, or dice them. If you like a nice thick sauce, you will need a lot of tomatoes, because if you want to get the sauce thick you will cook it down 50%. Add whatever herbs you want.

[amma_mama]

For tomato sauce, you want to do as PPs suggested with the blanching and peeling, but also take out the seeds and liquid after peeling, before crushing and cooking. You also want to select the right tomatoes for the right outcome - roma or plum tomatoes have a higher flesh to seed ratio, making them better candidates for tomato sauces (i.e. less waste). But you can use whatever you have, you just need more of other varieties to make the same amount of sauce. If you like it a bit chunky then you do not need a food mill, but if you want a really smooth sauce then you should mill it first (or just crush and push through a mesh strainer).

[Annie Mac]

Oh, is that how you get rid of the seeds? I've tried straining with no success, so have just left the seeds in. What can you do with the insides of the tomatoes?

[Otto]

Originally Posted by Purple Sage

Concasse?

Concassée is chopped and thus requires peeling and seeding; coulis is put through a mill or sieved.

[mamadelbosque]

I just use diced canned tomatos add a can/jar of tomato paste and spices... cook it down to desired thickness. I can tomatoes by just dicing them up and stuffing in jars... I never have figured out why people hate tomato skins so much.

[philomom]

I honestly puree everything and then just cook down to reduce water content.

[Mama Soltera]

I love the idea of pureeing then cooking down. Yes, I'm lazy. Or maybe it's just that I have very little time to cook. lol What is the downside to leaving skins?

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by Mama Soltera

I love the idea of pureeing then cooking down. Yes, I'm lazy. Or maybe it's just that I have very little time to cook. lol What is the downside to leaving skins?

They curl up as the sauce cooks, into little "sticks." If you don't mind that, then you can leave them-- I have, and it's fine-- but if the changed texture of the sauce (full of little hard bits) is going to bother you, you'll want to peel.

I find that if I cook the tomatoes down a bit, THEN puree, and then finish cooking, I get a nicer texture, because the tomatoes are softened a bit before the pureeing. But the skins won't cook down-- they'll just stay. If you get a fine enough puree you might not notice them, though.

I do it like this:
put them in boiling water for 30 second, to loosen the skins
remove the skins and chop into quarters
bring them close to boiling, and simmer about ten minutes to soften the fibrous parts
puree them in the blender
return them to the pot to "cook down" awhile

then I either heat them up again and can, or put the puree in jars to freeze, or cook some onion and garlic in oil and add the puree-- depending on whether I'm eating it right away or storing

I don't bother removing seeds. I don't mind having them in the finished sauce at all.

[mamadelbosque]

I have a very picky husband and he's not blinkd an eye at the switche from store-bought canned tomatoes to home-canned tomatoes (with skin!!) in tomato sauce. I really don't notice the 'lil hard bits' of skin. Maybe if you were doing whole tomatoes but all diced up they are truely virtually unnoticable, IME!!!

[Llyra]

Originally Posted by mamadelbosque

I have a very picky husband and he's not blinkd an eye at the switche from store-bought canned tomatoes to home-canned tomatoes (with skin!!) in tomato sauce. I really don't notice the 'lil hard bits' of skin. Maybe if you were doing whole tomatoes but all diced up they are truely virtually unnoticable, IME!!!

Probably you dice finer than I do-- that's likely the reason for the difference.

[caiesmommy]

All I've been doing is cutting the tomatoes into 4s. Adding onion, garlic, basil and cooking down, then blending it in the blender. Its a thinner sauce for sure but we actually like it that way. And its A LOT less work

[dividedsky]

my lazy/busy person's way of doing it from fresh tomatoes is to cut them in half, squeeze as much goo out as possible, toss in cuisinart. saute much, much garlic in olive oil with a smidge of salt, add tomato, cook down, add herbs and adjust seasonings. the skins are not unpleasant this way, as if the tomatoes were diced.

[mum4vr]

Originally Posted by dividedsky

my lazy/busy person's way of doing it from fresh tomatoes is to cut them in half, squeeze as much goo out as possible, toss in cuisinart. saute much, much garlic in olive oil with a smidge of salt, add tomato, cook down, add herbs and adjust seasonings. the skins are not unpleasant this way, as if the tomatoes were diced.

Confused sorry-- do you cuisinart the goo, the skin part or all of it together?

thx for these recipes, ladies! What a great idea.

[Magelet]

what I did last time (which I plan on pretty much repeating with my 15 pounds of tomatos but freezing at the paste part instead of using right away) was blanch em to peel them (I cooked them a bit more than in that video, til they split by themselves and the skin came away easier than it seemed to in the video no knife needed),

Then I seeded them (got most of the seeds) by opening each crevice/thing that holds pulp and seeds with a finger/fingernail, and sort of scooping out the pulp with my fingers. I then took the tomatoes and cooked them down (no liquid) for quite a long time, and they really cooked down and got tomato paste-y.

To make the sauce, I strained the pulp and added that and some water, and sauted onions and garlic and spices. (and fresh veggies). but I'd just freeze it at the tomato paste part.

[Chamomile Girl]

I don't bother with peeling or coring etc...I just cut the tomatoes into big chunks and throw them into a pot. Cook unitl quite saucy and then put through one of these. I then boil it down to desired consistancy.

Believe me...if I did it any other way all I would do this time of year is process tomatoes. This seems to be the fastest way. I also have a squeezo straino, which works great, but requires way too much of an uninterruptable process to be feasable with a toddler in the house. I think this year I have probably boiled down over 50lbs of tomatoes. Maybe more.

[dividedsky]

^^ cuisinart the whole tomato, sans goo that i squeeze out into a bowl and use for something else strain the goo and it's "tomato water" - fancy!