How to Can Tomatoes

Every spring I help my daughter Jamie plant a small garden. This year Jamie planted about a dozen tomato and pepper plants, some onions, and fresh basil.

This gave us plenty of fresh tomatoes and peppers into the late summer months. Last season Jamie decided that she wanted to do some canning. I was so excited and offered my help right away, as I hadn’t canned anything in years.

Although we had some tomatoes and hot peppers left from her garden, we wanted more, so we proceeded to go out and buy more. We decided that two more boxes of tomatoes would do the trick, and the following is how we did it.

With the tomatoes from her garden and the two boxes we purchased we figured that we had a bushel or more.

Instructions for Canning Tomatoes

We didn't have our old family recipe, so we used the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving as a reference. This book was a great help. We didn’t have a pressure cooker and this book walked us through the process.

  Step 1 

We put the tomatoes in boiling water for 60 seconds, and then put them in ice water; this process makes it easy to remove the skin and the core of the tomato. Then we cut the tomatoes into quarters and put them in bowls. We did this all by hand.

Step 2

After washing the jars in soapy water and thoroughly rinsing them we added: 2-Tablespoons of Lemon Juice and 1-Teaspoon of pickling salt to each jar. Then we filled the jars with the cut tomatoes and packed them down tightly.

Step 3

After the tomatoes were packed in the jars we ladled in boiling water until it was just over the top of the tomatoes.

Then Jamie worked out the air bubbles with that handy little tool that you see in the picture by pushing all around the jar. Wipe the mouth of the jars clean. Place the lid, rubber side down and screw on the ring to secure the lid

 Step 4

We then put the jars in boiling water making sure there are at least two inches of water over the tops of the jars, cover the pot with a lid and boil for 55 minutes.
Lift the jars out of the pot using a jar lifter, let them sit for 48 hours, look at the center lid of the jar, it should be concave after this process.

The Finished Product

We yielded 26 quarts of tomatoes for the day. Now we'll have fresh tomatoes for pasta, salsa, and chili.
This was our big weekend of canning, we had so much fun.

I hope you enjoyed our method of canning tomatoes. Please feel free to leave any of your tips for canning in the comments.

Are you preserving Hot Peppers this year? Find out how here

As always thanks for stopping by.

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