Tag: #PuttingThingsBack

Yesterday, we talked about why tomatoes need special attention when canning.

Today, we’re going to actually put some tomatoes in jars.

If you’ve never tried water-bath canning before, tomatoes can be a good way to learn the basic process. There are several tested ways to can tomatoes, but we’re starting with one of the simplest:

Whole or Halved Tomatoes Packed in Water.

There isn’t a complicated sauce to make and no long list of ingredients. We’re simply preserving tomatoes so they’ll be ready for another meal later.

And that’s really the heart of Putting Things Back.

Before You Start

For this recipe, use sound, ripe tomatoes that are free from disease, bruises, and other signs of spoilage.

Don’t use tomatoes from dead or frost-killed vines for canning.

You’ll also need:

• A boiling-water canner with a rack
• Clean canning jars
• Two-piece canning lids appropriate for your jars
• A jar lifter
• A canning funnel, if you have one
• A large pot for preparing the tomatoes
• A clean towel for wiping jar rims

If you’re new to water-bath canning, the National Center for Home Food Preservation has a helpful overview of the equipment and basic process.

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can

Ingredients

For the Tomatoes

• Ripe, firm tomatoes
• Boiling water, as needed

For Acidification

For each pint jar, use:

• 1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice or
• ¼ teaspoon citric acid

For each quart jar, use:

• 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice or
• ½ teaspoon citric acid

NCHFP also allows 5% acidity vinegar as an alternative, although it notes that vinegar can cause undesirable flavor changes.

For exact current acidification guidance, see:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/tomato-acidification-directions

Important: Use bottled lemon juice rather than freshly squeezed lemon juice when the recipe calls for bottled lemon juice. The acidity of bottled lemon juice is standardized; fresh lemon juice isn’t.

Preparing the Tomatoes

Wash the tomatoes thoroughly under running water.

Remove the cores.

Then dip the tomatoes in boiling water for about 30 to 60 seconds, or until the skins begin to split.

Immediately transfer them to cold water.

Once they’re cool enough to handle, slip off the skins.

You can leave small tomatoes whole or cut larger tomatoes in half.

If you prefer your canned tomatoes peeled and quartered, that’s perfectly fine — but for this particular tested procedure, we’re keeping things simple with whole or halved tomatoes.

Preparing the Jars

Prepare your jars according to current safe canning practices.

Keep the jars hot until you’re ready to fill them.

Put the required amount of acid directly into each hot jar before adding the tomatoes.

That’s an important step.

Don’t assume the tomatoes themselves are acidic enough.

We’re deliberately adding a measured amount of acid to every jar so the finished product has the acidity required by the tested procedure.

Filling the Jars

There are two ways to pack these tomatoes.

Hot Pack

Place the prepared tomatoes in a large saucepan and add enough water to completely cover them.

Bring them to a gentle boil and cook for 5 minutes.

Pack the hot tomatoes into the hot jars.

Then add the hot cooking liquid, leaving ½ inch of headspace.

Raw Pack

You can also pack the prepared raw tomatoes directly into the hot jars.

Add boiling water to cover the tomatoes, again leaving ½ inch of headspace.

Either way, the acid goes into the jar first.

Remove Air Bubbles

Run a bubble remover or a nonmetallic utensil around the inside of the jar to release trapped air.

Add more liquid if necessary to maintain the ½-inch headspace.

Wipe the rim of the jar with a clean, damp cloth.

Place the prepared lid on the jar and apply the ring according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Don’t overtighten.

Into the Water-Bath Canner

Place the filled jars on the rack in your boiling-water canner.

The jars should not sit directly on the bottom of the pot.

Make sure the jars are covered with water according to the canner’s instructions.

Bring the water to a full rolling boil before starting the processing time.

Processing Time

For whole or halved tomatoes packed in water, the current NCHFP processing times in a boiling-water canner are:

Jar Size	0–1,000 ft	1,001–3,000 ft	3,001–6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Pints	40 minutes	45 minutes	50 minutes	55 minutes
Quarts	45 minutes	50 minutes	55 minutes	60 minutes

These times are from the National Center for Home Food Preservation’s tested procedure:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/whole-or-halved-tomatoes-packed-in-water

Know your elevation. Processing times change with altitude, so don’t automatically use the 0–1,000-foot time if you live at a higher elevation.

Once the processing time is complete, turn off the heat and carefully remove the lid.

Let the jars stand in the canner for about 5 minutes before removing them.

Use a jar lifter to transfer the jars to a towel-covered surface, leaving space between the jars.

Don’t tighten the rings or press the lids.

Let the jars cool undisturbed for 12 to 24 hours.

Check Your Jars

Once the jars have cooled completely, check the seals.

A properly sealed lid should be concave and should not flex when pressed in the center.

If a jar hasn’t sealed, refrigerate it and use the contents promptly, or follow current NCHFP guidance for handling an unsealed jar.

Remove the rings before storing the sealed jars, and wipe the jars clean.

Label them with the contents and date.

Then put them on the pantry shelf and admire your work.

Seriously.

There’s something satisfying about looking at a row of jars and knowing that today’s tomatoes have become tomorrow’s meals.

How Many Tomatoes Do You Need?

This is one of those questions that sounds simple until you start buying tomatoes.

The amount you’ll need depends on the size and type of tomato, how tightly you pack the jars, and whether you’re making whole or halved tomatoes.

Rather than giving you a made-up “X pounds makes exactly X jars” number, I recommend buying or picking a little more than you think you’ll need.

Any tomatoes left over can become tonight’s dinner.

And that’s hardly a hardship.

Kitchen Confidence

If you’re nervous about water-bath canning, notice what we actually did here.

We didn’t need a complicated recipe.

We didn’t need twenty ingredients.

We needed:

good tomatoes + measured acid + clean jars + the correct headspace + the correct processing time.

That’s it.

Well… plus boiling water.

The important thing is that each part of the process has a purpose.

Once you understand that, canning becomes a lot less intimidating.

Stretch Every Grocery Dollar

Canning doesn’t always save money on every single batch.

That’s worth saying.

If you’re buying expensive tomatoes at the grocery store specifically to can them, you may not save much compared with buying canned tomatoes.

But when tomatoes are abundant at a farmers market, roadside stand, garden, or grocery-store sale, preserving them can be a very different calculation.

You’re buying them when they’re available and putting them away for later.

That’s one of the basic ideas behind Putting Things Back:

Buy or harvest food when it’s plentiful, then turn it into future meals.

Waste Not, Want Not

Don’t throw away the tomato scraps simply because you’re canning.

Save the usable bits for another purpose.

Tomato trimmings can go into sauces, soups, or other cooked dishes. And if you have a few tomatoes that aren’t quite right for canning, use them fresh rather than trying to force them into the canning batch.

Canning is about preserving good food.

It’s not about finding a way to preserve everything.

Cooking for One or Two

One of the things I particularly like about canned tomatoes is that they don’t require you to have a large household to make preserving worthwhile.

You can use a single pint in a skillet meal, soup, sauce, casserole, or stew.

And that’s where the real payoff begins.

A jar sitting on the shelf isn’t dinner.

A jar that becomes dinner is.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about exactly that.

What Can You Do With Those Tomatoes?

Once you’ve put tomatoes on the shelf, the next question is obvious:

What are you going to do with them?

Tomorrow, we’ll look at practical ways to turn those jars into meals — because putting food back is only half the story.

The other half is bringing it back out when you need it.

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Source for This Recipe

This recipe is adapted from the tested Whole or Halved Tomatoes (packed in water) procedure from the National Center for Home Food Preservation:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/whole-or-halved-tomatoes-packed-in-water

For the general tomato-canning information and acidification requirements:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/canning-tomatoes-introduction

For specific tomato acidification directions:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/tomato-acidification-directions

Always use current tested canning procedures rather than changing ingredients, jar sizes, headspace, or processing times on your own.

Tomatoes seem like they should be one of the easiest foods to preserve.

They grow abundantly in late summer, they’re naturally acidic, and generations of home cooks have been putting tomatoes into jars for years.

So why do tomatoes need special attention when you’re canning them?

Because “acidic” doesn’t always mean acidic enough.

And understanding that little distinction is one of the most important things a beginning home canner can learn.

What Does Acidity Have to Do With Canning?

When we’re talking about home canning, foods are generally divided into two broad groups:

Acid foods have a pH of 4.6 or lower.

Low-acid foods have a pH above 4.6.

That dividing line matters because the microorganisms we’re concerned about in home-canned foods behave differently depending on the acidity of the food.

Low-acid foods require pressure canning because a pressure canner reaches temperatures considerably higher than the boiling point of water. Those higher temperatures are necessary to safely process foods such as meat, poultry, and many vegetables.

Acid foods can generally be processed using a boiling-water canner.

That’s the basic idea.

But then we get to tomatoes.

Aren’t Tomatoes Acidic?

Yes.

Usually.

And that’s where things get interesting.

Tomatoes have traditionally been treated as an acid food for home-canning purposes. But some tomatoes can have a pH above 4.6, which means they aren’t reliably acidic enough to be treated as a safe acid food without additional acidification.

That’s why current USDA/NCHFP recommendations call for adding bottled lemon juice, citric acid, or 5% acidity vinegar when canning plain tomatoes and certain tomato products.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation explains the reasoning and current recommendations here:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/canning-tomatoes-introduction

In other words:

You don’t get to skip the acid just because the tomatoes taste acidic.

Your taste buds aren’t a pH meter.

Want the Exact Acidification Amounts?

NCHFP has a separate page with the current amounts for bottled lemon juice, citric acid, and 5% acidity vinegar for tomatoes.

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/tomato-acidification-directions

That’s a page worth bookmarking if you’re going to be canning tomatoes.

Why Does This Matter?

Because we’re not simply trying to make tomatoes taste good in a jar.

We’re trying to make them safe to store at room temperature.

That’s why home-canning recipes aren’t something to casually modify.

The amount of acid, the ingredients, the jar size, the headspace, and the processing method all work together.

A tested canning recipe has already taken those factors into account.

That’s also why you’ll sometimes find older tomato-canning recipes that don’t look quite like today’s recommendations.

Home-canning guidance has changed as researchers have learned more about the natural variation in tomato acidity and about the conditions necessary for safe preservation.

So if you have an old family recipe tucked into a cookbook or handwritten on an index card, treasure it for the memories — but check current tested guidance before using it for shelf-stable canning.

What Is a Water-Bath Canner?

A boiling-water canner is essentially a large pot designed to hold jars while they are covered with boiling water.

The jars sit on a rack rather than directly on the bottom of the pot, allowing hot water to circulate around them.

For properly acidified tomatoes and other appropriate acid foods, boiling-water processing can provide the heat treatment called for by the tested recipe.

NCHFP’s general food-safety information explains the principles behind safe home canning here:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/general-information/ensuring-safe-canned-foods

And this is where water-bath canning becomes a very approachable place to start.

You don’t need a complicated piece of equipment.

You need the right equipment, the right recipe, and a little patience.

What About a Pressure Canner?

A pressure canner is a different tool for a different job.

Pressure canning is necessary for low-acid foods because it allows the food to reach temperatures higher than boiling water can provide.

That’s why we’ll be talking about pressure canning later this week when we move from tomatoes to chicken.

And here’s an important point:

Pressure canning doesn’t automatically make every canning recipe interchangeable with every other recipe.

A tested recipe tells you which processing method to use, how long to process, and at what pressure when pressure canning is called for.

Follow the method that goes with the recipe.

One More Reason Tomatoes Deserve Respect

There’s another thing I want beginning canners to understand.

Tomatoes are forgiving in the kitchen.

Canning tomatoes is not the place to be casual about food-safety rules.

You can change a fresh tomato recipe because you don’t like onions.

You can add a little more garlic to tonight’s tomato sauce.

You can decide you want extra basil in the pot.

But when you’re making a shelf-stable canned product, don’t assume that a change that works perfectly well for cooking will also work for canning.

That’s where tested recipes matter.

The Good News

None of this means tomato canning is difficult.

Quite the opposite.

Once you understand why the acid matters, the process starts making a lot more sense.

And tomatoes are still a wonderful place for a beginning canner to learn about boiling-water canning.

Tomorrow, we’ll move from the why to the how.

I’ll walk you through a tested tomato-canning method, including the preparation, acidification, jar filling, processing, and the little details that make the difference between simply putting tomatoes in a jar and actually preserving them safely.

Because that’s really what Putting Things Back is about.

We’re not just filling jars.

We’re putting food away for another day — safely.

A Few Reliable Canning Resources

If you’re learning to can, these are the sources I’d bookmark rather than relying on a random recipe you happen to find online.

National Center for Home Food Preservation — Canning Tomatoes

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/canning-tomatoes-introduction

This is the NCHFP’s overview of tomato canning, including current guidance on tomato acidity and acidification.

NCHFP — Tomato Acidification Directions

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/tomato-acidification-directions

This page gives the specific acidification directions for tomatoes.

NCHFP — Ensuring Safe Canned Foods

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/general-information/ensuring-safe-canned-foods

This explains the principles behind safe home canning and why the appropriate processing method matters.

USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning

https://nchfp.uga.edu/resources/category/usda-guide

The NCHFP hosts the USDA’s Complete Guide to Home Canning, including information on fruits, vegetables, tomatoes, meats, poultry, jams, jellies, and other home-preserved foods.

For this week’s canning posts, these are the sources I’m using as the safety foundation. When it comes to home canning, tested recipes and current recommendations matter.