Jars of Homemade Canned Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

The Best Homemade Canned Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

Wanting to can homemade spaghetti sauce but don’t know how! This homemade canned spaghetti sauce recipe is the tomato grower’s dream sauce. Packed with amazing flavor, quality ingredients, and the ability to enjoy your garden harvest long after your tomatoes have stopped producing!

Pin for later!

jars of homemade Canned Spaghetti Sauce Recipe, canning spaghetti sauce

This post contains affiliate links

How Do You Add Flavor To Canned Spaghetti Sauce?

A great way to add flavor to canned spaghetti sauce is to add some fresh romano and parmesan cheese to it as you are heating it up. It adds a great flavor and thickens the texture too. 

Is Canned Spaghetti Sauce Bad For You?

No, canning spaghetti sauce straight from your garden is a wonderful way to get that fresh goodness from your garden and into your family. If you are organic gardening that just makes it all the more healthy for your family. You control what goes on your plants, in your soil, when your fruits are harvested, where they are kept, how they are stored, how they are processed, what goes into your sauce. In other words, YOU are in control and choose what you want inside your sauce and how you want to nurture your family.

Homemade Canned Spaghetti Sauce

Why Make Canned Spaghetti Sauce?

This homemade canned spaghetti sauce recipe is something that we make every year when the tomatoes start producing. We are super picky about our tomato sauce in this house, add in some really bad food allergies and store-bought sauces aren’t an option for us. Enter our homemade canned spaghetti sauce recipe! 

Making your own homemade spaghetti sauce is super easy and a great way to get your feet wet in the canning world. You can so easily adjust this homemade canned spaghetti sauce recipe to make it perfect for how your family likes your spaghetti sauce- and it is so nice to have it in the pantry ready to go for recipes like:

How Long Does Homemade Canned Spaghetti Sauce Last?

If preserved properly your homemade canned spaghetti sauce can last for five years or longer but will lose its peak flavor for two years. 

Do You Have To Add Lemon Juice When Canning Spaghetti Sauce?

Lemon juice helps to ensure that your homemade canned spaghetti sauce has a safe acidity level. Add two tablespoons of lemon juice to each quart jar of homemade canned spaghetti sauce. If you don’t have lemon juice on hand you could substitute it for 1/2 teaspoon citric acid per quart. 

Making Canned Spaghetti Sauce

This canned spaghetti sauce recipe is full of fresh garden flavors that will make your meals taste all the better!

What Do You Need To Make This Canned Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

Homemade Canned Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

Ingredients:

25 lb Fresh Tomatoes
1 tablespoon lemon juice (per jar)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil (or other oil)
8-9 cloves of garlic peeled and chopped
onion powder to taste
garlic powder to taste
1-2 tablespoons parsley flakes
 
 
 
 
 

Directions:

Wash your tomatoes, we like to use our GSE Cleaner on all of our garden veggies. 
 
Fill a large stock pan with water and bring to a boil, once the water is boiling add whole tomatoes in batches to the water. Leave the tomatoes in the water until the skin splits then gently scoop them out and place them in a bowl to cool. 
 
Once the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off of them and use a knife to cut out the center. From here you have a few options:
 
A) Toss the tomatoes into a blender and blend to a sauce consistency in batches.
 
B) Use a stick blender to blend down the tomatoes in a high sided bowl.
 
C) Run the tomatoes through a sauce maker (this will remove any skin or seeds in your sauce and leave you with something that resembles a store-bought sauce).
 
Once your sauce is made set it aside, and in a large stockpot heat olive oil. Turn it to med/low heat and add your chopped garlic.
 
Stir constantly until it turns golden in color (not brown) and becomes very fragrant. At this point pour your freshly made sauce into the pan. Add in your parsley flakes and season with garlic powder and onion powder.

Turn down low and simmer slowly for about 20 min to let the seasonings mingle.

While your sauce is simmering prep your canning equipment: Fill your canner with water (it should be 2″ over the top of the jars) and get it boiling. Sterilize your jars, and get everything else ready. 

Once your canner is ready to go, begin filling quart jars with your homemade spaghetti sauce leaving a 1/2″ headspace. Add 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice per quart. 

Wipe the rim of the jars with a clean cloth or paper towel. Place a new canning lid on the jar top, screw the ring on top (don’t over tighten the ring), and put the jars into the boiling water in the canner.

Once your canner is full place the lid on top and set the timer for 45 minutes.

When the homemade canned spaghetti sauce recipe is finished canning, remove your jars to a thickly toweled flat surface and allow them to cool for 24 hours. Remove the rings and check the lids to make sure they have been sealed properly. If the lids pop up and down when you push on them they didn’t seal properly- just put those ones in the fridge.

Wipe down the outsides of the jars of homemade canned spaghetti sauce and lids with a damp washcloth. Label, date, and store your jars of sauce out of the sunlight in a pantry. When you are ready to use your canned spaghetti sauce just pop open the lid and add it to whatever dish you wish. You can also add cheese to your sauce once it’s open.

Makes 8 quarts.

Notes On Making Canned Spaghetti Sauce

  • Always use quality ingredients, you do not want to can tomatoes with bad spots.
  • You can also use pints for this homemade canned spaghetti sauce recipe. Process them for 35 minutes.
  • Adjust the herbs to your taste or add other herbs like basil to your sauce.

Have a question about making this homemade canned spaghetti sauce recipe? Drop them in the comments and we will try to answer them. 



 

Before you go check out these other preserving and canning recipes:

Canning And Preserving Videos:

About The Author

56 thoughts on “The Best Homemade Canned Spaghetti Sauce Recipe”

  1. I think I’m secretly hoping you all start a food company so I can buy your products! I would love to can again – as I have only done it once. However, I was so worn out that I don’t have the heart (or courage) to try it again by myself!

    1. On the spaghetti sauce do you add the tablespoon of lemon juice in the 1/2 inch headspace or directly into sauce?

    1. You water bath can it, so no pressure required. Just add lemon juice to your jars. If you wanted to pressure can the sauce, you will have to see what pressure to can tomatoes for where you live. It varies based on your altitude.

    1. Hi! I prepare my tomatoes a little different I use a Dutch Oven pan. Spray bottom with Spam add small amount of water. Just enough to cover bottom. Clean the tomatoes, put all of tomatoes, into the pan. Use a potato masher to smash down lightly. Simmer for 20-30
      Minutes. Or until tomatoes are soft and reduced, cool. Pour 2 cups at a time into blender. Blend for a few seconds. Make sure you have a bowl under the Colander. Pour into colander use a mallet. Rotate mallet to remove all seeds and skins. Can be drained at this time if ti watery. Sauce is ready to make tomato sauce, Spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce to can or freeze. Seems like a lot of steps no peeling or coring is involved. Actually goes quickly can be preparing for the other steps while tomatoes are simmering.

      1. I use a cone strainer and mallet, to remove core, skin and seeds. I’m still using what my Grandmother gave me 52 years ago. She always called it a colander. You call it a Sauce maker. Same thing, depends on what part of the county you grew up in!

        1. Yes, the longer you cook it the thicker it will get. Make sure you leave the lid off so the water will evaporate out.

  2. I don’t boil my tomatoes to split the skins to remove them. I slit my tomatoes all the way around lengthwise, put them on sheet pans drizzled in olive oil with smashed garlic cloves and finely diced onions and peppers, then put the pan in a hot oven until the tomato skins loosen. Then I set the pans out to cool and then pull the skins off. I then dump everything into my blender before putting on the stove to simmer. The entire house smells amazing, and the tomatoes are melded nicely with the garlic, peppers and onions.

  3. After you put your jars in the canner and put the lid on, do you turn off the heat or turn down temp for the 45 minutes to process?

    1. That is a hard question to answer because it depends on the size of your tomato and its density. Generally speaking, one pound of tomatoes is about 3 baseball size tomatoes a little less if you have a very solid tomato. I am sorry to be so vague.

    1. If you add other vegetables to your sauce you will need to pressure can it because it changes the acidity. Personally I’ve never added either of those or tried to can them so I don’t have an answer for you

  4. Can I use garden zuchinni and celery to canned sauce? How about using Iralian seasoning spice? Will that suffice for sauce flavourful?

    1. Hello Pamela! If you use the zucchini and celery (according to the USDA) You would need to pressure can it. Other than that there is no reason that you couldn’t add them. Yes, you can use Italian seasoning to your sauce. Yes.

    2. I’ve never added either of those to my sauce, if you did you would need to pressure can it. Yes you can use Italian seasoning if you wish. We rarely add anything but salt to our sauce unless it is slated for a certain kind of dish and find it flavorful enough. You can always add seasoning when you are using the sauce later

    3. Love your recipe.. Can you tell me how long it will last after open put into the refrigerator.

      Thanks,
      Angela

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top