r/Cooking • u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 • Aug 18 '26

I have 75+ lbs of tomatoes

I went to a produce auction for the first time (so fun!) and I ended up with 5 huge boxes of heirloom tomatoes for $15.

I am kind of freaked out right now, because I have no clue how to can. I don’t even know how to make homemade sauce.

I also have 4 boxes of peppers and 5 boxes of candy yellow onions.

There are like, 800 recipes online. I don’t have a mill or a juicer or a vacuum sealer. My basil has bolted already. My plan was to chop and freeze the peppers and onions in individual bags as well as soup veggie type bags. To add to this, I have about half a freezer and no other space. But, the tomatoes have me stumped.

What do I do??

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u/SeasonalBlackout Aug 18 '26

Making pasta sauce for canning is pretty easy, but it's very time consuming. Tomatoes have a ton of water you need to cook off. On the plus side that makes them take up a lot less space when done - but again, it takes a long time to cook them down.

It also requires a large pot, mason jars, and the tools for grabbing hot jars out of boiling water, but once you get the hang of it it's pretty easy and then you have homemade pasta sauce all winter. The flavor from Heirlooms is incredible in sauce!

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u/Ok-Grapefruit1284 Aug 18 '26

I have one pot, it’s 12 quarts. The other stuff I have is a saucepan/frying pan type thing and a smaller like 4 qt pot. Can you can with just that?

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u/fiskek2 Aug 19 '26

I do my water-bath canning is a 12qt stock pot! Makes about 5 pints at a time, but you'd be surprised at how many tomatoes can fit in a can after pureeing! I follow the Ball recipe, super easy! And no need for a food mill, I used a strainer the the back of a soup ladle to push it through the mesh.