This is a delicious, simple, easy to make sauce for pasta or other uses.
The recipe, from the Ball Blue Book, is also sugar and salt free straight out of the book, which makes it extra healthy.
While you can add dried seasoning to the recipe, you may wish to consider leaving it simple so that it’s more flexible when you open a jar.
You can easily double or triple this recipe.
We’ve made a suggestion that this sauce could just as well be made using passata (pure puréed tomato) as a base, because when starting from fresh tomatoes, all the first few steps do is have you prepare a passata. This is our suggestion, and not Ball’s.
See all pasta-sauce recipes for canning.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Half-litre (US pint / 500 ml / 16 oz) OR 1 litre (1 US quart / 32 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 7 x half-litre (US pint / 500 ml / 16 oz) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 35 minutes for half-litres (pints); 40 minutes for litres (quarts)
Basil and Garlic Tomato Sauce
This is a delicious, simple, easy to make home-canned sauce for pasta or other uses. The recipe, from the Ball Blue Book, is also sugar and salt free straight out of the book, which makes it extra healthy.
Ingredients
Instructions
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If starting from tomatoes, wash, core and quarter the tomatoes. Set aside.
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Peel and chop onion. Set aside.
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Peel and mince garlic. Set aside.
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Wash basil, discard stems, mince finely. Set aside.
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Take a large pot. Add the onion, garlic and oil.
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Sauté until onion starts to look clear.
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If starting from tomatoes: Add the tomatoes to the pot. Cook uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring often. Pass mixture through a food mill or sieve to remove all the skin and seeds. Return strained tomato and onion purée to pot.
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If using passata: put onion mixture in a food processor or blender. Add some of the passata. Blend until smooth. Put in pot, add all the remaining passata.
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Add prepared basil to pot.
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If starting from tomatoes, cook uncovered over medium heat until volume is reduced by a half. About 1 hour.
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If starting from passata, simmer uncovered 10 minutes.
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Regardless of how you started, stir often to avoid scorching at the bottom of the pot.
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MANDATORY. Acidify jars. To each half-litre/ pint jar add either 1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice OR ¼ teaspoon citric acid. To each litre/quart jar add either 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice OR ½ teaspoon citric acid.
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Ladle sauce into heated jars.
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Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
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Debubble, adjust headspace.
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Wipe jar rims.
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Put lids on.
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Process in a water bath or steam canner.
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Process jars 35 minutes for half-litres (pints), 40 minutes for litres (quarts). Increase time as needed for your altitude.
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
Recipe notes
- If you wish, you could season with salt, pepper, and dry (not fresh) herbs.
- If canning in litre (quart) jars, your yield should be about 3 jars.
- To be clear, the passata suggestion is ours. Ball only randomly authorizes substitutions to their recipes. We’re confident that it’s a safe one, as passata is just pure tomato run through a food mill, resulting in what they have you do with fresh tomatoes to get there.
- If using passata (4 x 700 ml bottles), your yield will be 6 x half-litre (US pint) jars.
- If using passata, stand emptied bottles upside down with caps on to drain well, then empty the bottles again into the pot. You’ll get an extra few tablespoons out of each bottle.
Recipe source
- Ball Blue Book. Muncie, Indiana: Healthmark LLC / Jarden Home Brands. Edition 37. 2014. Page 33.
- Also appears in: Ball Canning Back to Basics. Healthmark LLC / Newell Brands. Birmingham, AL : Oxmoor House. 2017. Page 148.
Modifications:
- Added suggestions for starting with tomato passata
Nutrition information
Per 250 ml (1 cup / 8 oz)
- 131 calories, 32 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
Corinne
I don’t have a hand mill. Is it okay to simply remove the skin by the boiling method, then squeeze the tomatoes to remove as much juice/seeds as possible? Then boil with garlic/onions in the pot and mix with a hand blender before processing?
Thanks!
Healthy Canning
Yes, that would be fine to do that manually.
Kristin
Without a food mill, can I use a food processor instead?
Healthy Canning
Peel the tomatoes manually, then later for the blending part you can use the food processor. Just be sure not to skip the tomato peeling part.
Anastasia
Why would it be better to acidify the jars rather than mix it in to the entire batch while its still cooking? I have seen both methods mentioned and also seen some people say acidifying the jars does not ensure the acid will mix into the whole jar leaving it unsafe and that you should always mix the lemon juice or citric acid directly into the tomatoes while cooking to let it evenly distribute.
Please let me know, I want to make sure I am being as safe as I can.
Also if it is ok to just add acid to the jars do i add the lemon juice before or after filling the sterilized jars?
Healthy Canning
Many home canning professionals that teach prefer us in fact to add the lemon juice / citric acid to the jars first before the tomato goes in; that way, in the thick of the action, people are less likely to forget which jars got it. I’ve never heard them express any concern about the acidification not mixing properly. But I am also never surprised at what micro-issues arm-chair experts in FB canning groups will dream up. It shows perhaps a lack of understanding of heat patterns in jars, which moves liquids around inside a jar: https://www.healthycanning.com/heating-patterns-inside-jars/
Sara
Why not fresh herbs? And why must the seeds be strained out? I do blanch and peel my tomatoes but haven’t worries about the seeds. Never had an issue.
Healthy Canning
In canning recipes, directions are meant to be followed exactly as given.
Sheryl
Can I add jalapeno?
Healthy Canning
That’s a low-acid ingredient, and counts as more than just “dried herbs and spices”, so, no.
Helen
Does the mix have to be pureed? Would it be OK to leave the onion and tomatoes chopped without being sieved or blended?
Presumably the basil could be swapped out for similar quantities of another herb, eg parsley?
Could the garlic be increased safely?
Healthy Canning
If you want to leave tomatoes chunkier, choose another recipe such as this rustic pasta sauce. It’s okay to swap one fresh herb for another in equal quantity. You should ask Ball directly if you can increase the garlic and if so by how much and still be safe, but don’t forget flavours intensify in canning.
Kristian Gareau
Can you please explain what do you mean by : Debubble, adjust headspace.
Healthy Canning
Information on debubbling is here: https://www.healthycanning.com/debubbling/
After you debubble, causing air trapped in jar to escape, the level of the food in the jar will usually have decreased, so you often need to add a bit more of the food in question to bring the headspace back up to where it needs to be. Doing that is referred to as adjusting headspace.