Homemade tomato passata for winter, no sugar, no vinegar
Five kilos of August tomatoes become six bottles of thick, smooth purée that makes tomato soup, pasta sauce and leczo all year. Only tomatoes, salt and a tablespoon of lemon juice per bottle: the added acid is what makes home pasteurising safe. Skins and seeds stay in the sieve, and the long reduction gives a thickness no carton has.
Your own work in that: 50 min.
- Cutting 15 min
- Tomatoes releasing juice 20 min
- Passing through the mill 20 min
- Reducing 40 min
- Bottling 15 min
- Pasteurising 35 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneCut the tomatoes
Wash the tomatoes, cut out the stem cores and halve or quarter them. Don't peel or deseed: the sieve does that. Choose fleshy varieties; watery ones give much less purée.
Ingredients: 5000 g tomatoes · 2 tsp salt · 6 tbsp lemon juice
TipMuch of the flavour and colour sits just under the skin: cooked together with the flesh, the skins give it up to the purée and only the tough skins are left in the sieve.
Halved, skins and seeds inCook down
Put the tomatoes in a very large pot, cover and heat over medium heat. After a few minutes they release juice; then uncover and cook 20 minutes, stirring, until they collapse completely.
Collapsing in their own juicePass through the mill
Pass the hot tomatoes through a food mill or a fine sieve, pressing with a spoon. Discard the skins and seeds. A blender is no substitute for the sieve: it grinds the seeds and the purée turns bitter and grainy.
TipA food mill pays for itself with the first crate of tomatoes. Without one, press the tomatoes through a sieve in batches with a ladle; it takes longer.
Through the mill; skins and seeds stay behindReduce until thick
Pour the purée back into a wide pot and simmer uncovered over medium heat 30–40 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until reduced by a third and a spoon leaves a trail on the surface. Salt at the end. A wide pot evaporates faster than a tall one.
A third less, the spoon leaves a trailBottle hot
Scald the bottles and jars with boiling water. Put a tablespoon of lemon juice into each bottle, then pour the boiling purée through a funnel to 1.5 cm below the rim, wipe the threads and seal tightly. Six bottles of about 500 ml; watery tomatoes give less. The lemon is not for flavour: tomatoes sit on the acidity borderline, and without it home processing does not protect against botulism.
Boiling hot, 1.5 cm from the rimPasteurise
Stand the bottles in a pot on a folded cloth, add hot water to three-quarters of their height and pasteurise 35 minutes from the boil over low heat. Lift out and cool. Sealed, they keep a year in a dark pantry; an opened bottle, 5 days in the fridge.
TipTomatoes sit on the acidity borderline (usually pH 4.2–4.6, some varieties higher), so only with the lemon juice is a plain water bath enough. Don't add onion or garlic to the jar: they lower the acidity, and you can season in winter.
35 minutes from the boil
Before you start
With basil
A few fresh basil leaves in each bottle before filling: the Italian version. Keep dried herbs for the pot in winter.
From roasted tomatoes
Roast the halves 40 minutes at 200 °C on a tray before milling: sweeter, deeper, slightly smoky. The rest unchanged.
Freezing instead of jars
Cool the reduced purée and freeze in 400 ml tubs or flat in bags. No pasteurising, the same flavour, you just need freezer space.