Canning Tomatoes

Canning tomatoes is easy and is a great way to preserve all the tasty tomatoes from your garden or farmers’ market that you picked up. You will need canning jars and a canning kettle (often called a water bath), which comes with a rack to set the canning jars on. The jars cannot be in contact with the bottom of the pot.

Make sure the canning jar rims are clean and have no nicks in the rims, otherwise the jars will not seal properly and your tomatoes will go bad. You will also need to add some sort of acid to the tomatoes in order to kill any spores that would promote botulism. For every quart, it is recommended to add two tablespoons of lemon juice or a half teaspoon citric acid; for pints these ingredients are cut in half.

For canning whole tomatoes, you will need about three pounds of fresh, firm tomatoes for each quart. Do not use soft, overripe tomatoes. Also, if you do not care to have the peels left on, have boiling water ready and dip them in for thirty seconds, then immediately plunge them into cold water. The skins should just slip right off then. Removing any bruises or dark spots is also recommended.

You can either process tomatoes raw or cooked. To pack them raw, to each quart add one teaspoon of salt (optional) along with the aforementioned acid. Pack the tomatoes tightly, removing the air bubbles by using a rubber scraper or chop stick; make sure it is not metal, because there will be an undesirable chemical reaction between the acid and metal. Boil quart jars for 45 minutes for proper preservation. For cooked processing, cover tomatoes with water and gently boil for five minutes, then proceed as with raw packed.