Crushed tomatoes, water-bath canned
The plainest, most useful jar in the pantry: tomatoes and nothing else, ready for any sauce in February.
Makes
About 7 × 1 L (quart) jars from 10 kg (22 lb) of tomatoes; 6.4 kg (14 lb) fills 9 × 500 ml (pint) jars
Active time
1½ hours
Total
2½ hours, plus 12–24 hours cooling
Photo naturalflow on Flickr · CC BY-SA 2.0
Before you start
What keeps this jar safe
- The lemon juice is not optional: tomatoes sit near pH 4.6 and the added acid is what makes a boiling-water bath safe. Use bottled juice, not fresh — the acidity of fresh lemons varies.
- Do not add onions, peppers, celery, garlic or oil — that is a different, low-acid recipe and needs a tested salsa or pressure-canning recipe.
- A little sugar may be added to soften the acid taste, but never leave the acid out.
- Use only jars made for canning with new two-piece lids; a sealed lid is concave and does not flex.
- Skip tomatoes from frost-killed or dead vines and anything soft or mouldy — they can be less acidic and spoil the batch.
This follows NCHFP: Crushed Tomatoes (with no added liquid). Quantities, acid and times are theirs; do not scale the vegetables without scaling everything, and do not change the vinegar, lemon juice or processing time.
Ingredients
- 10 kg (22 lb) ripe paste or slicing tomatoes — reckon about 1.25 kg (2¾ lb) per litre jar
- Bottled lemon juice: 2 tablespoons (30 ml) per 1 L jar, 1 tablespoon (15 ml) per 500 ml jar — or citric acid, ½ teaspoon per 1 L jar, ¼ teaspoon per 500 ml jar
- Salt, optional: 1 teaspoon (5 ml) per 1 L jar, for flavour only
Processing
- Jars
- 1 L (quart) · 500 ml (pint) in brackets
- Headspace
- 1.25 cm (½ inch)
- Time at 0–300 m (0–1,000 ft)
- 45 min
- Higher up
- 500 ml jars: 35 min. For both sizes add 5 min at 300–900 m (1,001–3,000 ft), 10 min at 900–1,800 m (3,001–6,000 ft), 15 min above 1,800 m (6,000 ft).
Method
- 1
Wash the jars and keep them hot in the canner while the water heats; wash the lids in hot soapy water and set them aside. A child can wash and sort the tomatoes while you set up.
- 2
Dip the tomatoes in boiling water 30–60 seconds until the skins split, then into cold water. Slip the skins, cut out the cores and trim any bruises or black spots. Quarter them.
- 3
Put about a sixth of the quarters in a large pot and crush them with a masher while heating hard and stirring, so they give up their juice and come to the boil. Add the rest a few handfuls at a time, stirring constantly — these don’t need crushing, they soften in the hot juice. Once everything is in, boil gently 5 minutes.
- 4
Put the lemon juice (or citric acid) into each hot jar first — 2 tablespoons per litre, 1 per 500 ml — and the salt if you are using it.
- 5
Fill the jars with hot tomatoes, leaving 1.25 cm (½ inch) headspace. Run a chopstick down the inside to free bubbles, top up if needed, wipe the rims, centre the lids and screw the bands on fingertip-tight.
- 6
Lower the jars into the canner so the water covers them by at least 5 cm (2 inches). Bring to a full rolling boil, then start the clock: 1 L jars 45 minutes, 500 ml jars 35 minutes at 0–300 m. Keep it boiling the whole time; if it stops, bring it back and start the clock again.
- 7
Turn off the heat, take off the lid and wait 5 minutes. Lift the jars straight up onto a towel and leave them 12–24 hours untouched. Press each lid: a sealed one is concave and does not spring back. Refrigerate any that did not seal and use within a week.
Keeps: 12–18 months in a cool dark cupboard, best within a year. Refrigerate after opening and use within a week.
Variations: Paste tomatoes (Roma, San Marzano, Amish Paste) give a thicker jar; slicers give more juice. For a smooth purée, pass the hot tomatoes through a food mill and can them as tomato juice instead (its own times, below).
Tested source: NCHFP: Crushed Tomatoes (with no added liquid). Checked October 2026. If a jar did not seal, refrigerate it and use it within a few days. Never taste anything from a jar that is bulging, leaking, spurting or smells wrong — when in doubt, throw it out without tasting.
The crop
Tomatoes: when to pick, how to store, what else to make →
Tomatoes are the home canner’s classic, but they sit right on the acidity line: every tested canned-tomato recipe adds bottled lemon juice or citric acid to each jar, and that is not optional whether you water-bath or pressure can. Whole tomatoes freeze well with no blanching — the skins slip off under the tap as they thaw — which is the fastest way to deal with a glut on a weeknight. Cherry and paste tomatoes dry beautifully. What does not work is a sauce you have thickened with flour or loaded with extra peppers, onions and oil to taste: the added low-acid vegetables change the safety of the recipe, so follow a tested salsa or sauce recipe exactly. Green tomatoes are more acidic than ripe ones and can be canned by the same recipes, with the same added acid.
More for tomatoes
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