Tomato Juice - Canning

"Ok...Here's THE recipe for canning tomato juice that doesn't separate. Just like store bought tomato juice. The trick is to bring the juice to a rolling boil again AFTER you have run it through your food mill. I usually juice around 2-3 bushels of tomatoes per year. In order to get that 'Store Bought' consistency, mix your tomatoes 50/50 roma and regular. So I always buy a bushel of romas and a bushel of regular. This year we bought 2 bushels each and have lots of juice for the year. This recipe should yield around 15 quarts/litres in general."
 
Download
photo by Axe1678 photo by Axe1678
photo by Axe1678
photo by Axe1678 photo by Axe1678
Ready In:
4hrs
Ingredients:
2
Serves:
30
Advertisement

ingredients

  • 1 bushel tomatoes (half Roma and half regular)
  • 15 teaspoons salt (I recommend some as salt is a preservative) (optional)
Advertisement

directions

  • Core and peel tomatoes (Often, the day before, I will wash and core the tomatoes and freeze them first. Then just dunk them in a sink full of hot water and the peel falls right off). UPDATE: This year I didn't even bother to peel them, just core them and continue. The peel will come out in step 4.
  • Place the tomatoes in a large stock pot and as you fill it, bring them to a rolling boil, stirring regularly (They will burn if you don't). I usually squish the first few with a potato masher to cover the bottom of the stock pot with liquid in order to get the boiling process kick started.
  • Sterilize your jars (I do this in the dishwasher).
  • Once you have all your tomatoes in the stock pot and boiling up a storm, ladle them into your food mill and grind out the mixture into pots, scraping the good stuff off the sides of the cone into your juice.
  • Throw out the remaining pulp and return the juice to the stock pot.
  • Bring back to a rolling boil.
  • Add salt. (I usually add 1 tsp to each litre/quart). This is optional of course.
  • Pour into jars leaving 1/2 inch air space.
  • Place jars into canner and boil for 25 minutes.
  • DONE!

Questions & Replies

  1. This is exactly the way I do it, except that I add 1 tsp sugar and 1/2 tsp citric or tartaric acid per quart, and leave 1 inch headspace. Not having read this, I processed my quart jars in a boiling water bath for 30 minutes. It separated for sure!!! Half the jar was liquid and the pulp was right up to the lid, boiling out into the water bath from most jars. I tightened the lids even more on those jars, and all but one sealed, but before storing, I had to shake each jar to get the pulp mixed with the liquid, and it still separated to a certain extent after that. Can you see what I did to cause the separation that this recipe is supposed to prevent? How can I avoid losing so much of the pulp due to boil-over? I am toying with using larger jars and leaving about a cup of head space.
     
  2. Do I need to add water when boiling the tomatos?
     
  3. How lo g to you cook juice for
     
  4. I don't own a food mill ..so can I just liquefy it in my Ninja?
     
Advertisement

Reviews

  1. Love the recipe except for one little thing. Waste not, want not. LOL instead of discarding the skins and pulp put them in the dehydrator and make tomato powder. This recipe is quick and tasty.
     
  2. This recipe was fantastic, 2nd round of canning tomato juice this month, I skipped step completely of skinning/peeling. Instead used my juicer attachment on mixer and juiced before even started cooking, I cored and cut bad spots first of course. The pulp left over went into dehydrator with other veggie scraps and peelings. will make a great veggie powder. I make my own house secret recipe of spices. Wonderful on cooked meats of all kinds from pork to beef and anything in between.
     
  3. This was so fast and easy! I used cherry tomaotes and big beef. I don't really care about the thickness. I have a wonderful food mill that takes all the skins and seeds right out, so this was a super fast recipe. I had no problem with the jars sealing either. They sealed almost right away! I did add 2 tbs of lemon juice per quart because it's a preservative. Thanks to some advice from my recipe zaar buddies. I will be using this recipe the rest of the growing season! Thanks for posting!
     
  4. I get the most from my tomatoes. I wash and corethe tomatoes. I then cut them in half just to make sure there's nothing rotten hiding inside. I then put them through a Dr juicer. I also add peppers,celery,cucumber, almost any veggie from the garden, through the juicer. The xtra veggies add volume and flavor. I don't have s problem with separation during storage. Just shake it up. If you could see the store bought juice in the cans, you'd see separation. They tell you to shake it. The pulp from the juicer goes into a blender and then a food mill and eventually becomes spaghetti sauce. But if you do that, juice the tomatoes separate from the cucumbers. You don't want too much other veggie pulp in your spaghetti sauce. It makes it a funky color.
     
  5. I processed tomato juice using this recipe and now realize that I may not have boiled the jars of juice long enough. Most recipes call for 40 to 50 minutes processing time for tomato juice. This recipe says boil for 25 minutes.
     
Advertisement

RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Find More Recipes