Easy Canned Pizza Sauce Recipe With Frozen or Fresh Tomatoes
Ever wondered how to make delicious pizza sauce from scratch with either fresh or frozen tomatoes? Here’s a simple, easy to follow canned pizza sauce recipe with detailed steps and tips to make the perfect sauce right in your kitchen to water-bath can or freeze. The biggest tip of all? Using frozen tomatoes to reduce cooking time and to be able to make it when you want! Say goodbye to store bought cans and hello to your new go-to homemade recipe for your next pizza night.
✩ What readers are saying…
“This is the best…..the method and the recipe!!! I am so excited to have my own pizza sauce…It is so thick and beautiful.” -Yvonne
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This wonderfully seasoned canned pizza sauce forms the MVP’s of my canning recipes together with my favorite salsa, roasted tomato sauce, and addictive tomato chutney.
So during the tomato harvest I make enough of these four staples to see us through the year and I only make other things like bruschetta topping or rotel if I have any tomatoes left. It’s part of how I make sure we have enough of what we use the most so that I never have to buy them at the store.
However, for a number of reasons (time issues, weird tomato season, other commitments), one year I just couldn’t find the time to make all our tomato recipes when the tomatoes were coming in fast and furious. Since I had a few cans of pizza sauce left on the shelf I concentrated on the other tomato recipes and simply froze enough bags of paste tomatoes (with a few heirlooms thrown in for great flavor) to be able to make the pizza sauce later.
In January I pulled out the frozen tomatoes and made the easiest, best pizza sauce ever that was done in record time! Since then I’ve frozen our tomatoes at least a day or two before making sauce, even during canning season, because less cooking time is a good thing!
While you can, of course, make this sauce from fresh tomatoes – and I give directions for both – frozen is my preferred way now since it makes the cooking down part go so much quicker. Read on for all the details, including answers to lots of questions after the recipe card!
Recipe Ingredients
Besides tomatoes you’ll need the following ingredients:
Ingredient Notes
- Oil: I prefer olive oil as it’s traditional in Italian style sauces, but you can use avocado oil or an oil of your choice. And yes, it’s safe to use this small amount of oil in a canned recipe – see note below.
- Fresh onions and garlic: To keep this recipes safe for canning you MUST stick to the amounts of fresh ingredients that are listed in the recipe card. DO NOT add more garlic, onions, or fresh herbs.
- Salt: You can use canning salt or pure sea salt – you want a salt with no additives like table salt has.
Origin and Safety of this Canned Pizza Sauce Recipe
This recipe is based on the Ball Blue Book’s Seasoned Tomato Sauce, cut in half and with different dry spices to make it a pizza sauce. (It’s in this most recent version of the Blue Book on page 33.) It’s a tested recipe that safely uses the fresh onions and garlic called for as well as the oil. Feel free to use less if you’d like but you cannot use more if you want to can it to be shelf stable (you can use as many fresh things as you’d like if you’re freezing the sauce).
Canned Pizza Sauce Recipe: Step-by-Step
Detailed quantities and instructions are included in the full recipe box below, but here are a few extra tips to help with each step:
Step 1: Thaw (if needed), Puree and Strain Tomatoes
To Use Frozen Tomatoes
- Thaw tomatoes (overnight is good) in a bowl or the sink (in case the bags leak). (Reader Tip: “To thaw, we fill (half way) a CLEAN SINK with hot tap water, then dump a half bag (at a time) of the frozen tomatoes into the hot water for a few moments, and the peels slide off easily. Then we continue with the thawing process. It saves a lot of time and ware & tear on the machine.”)
- Drain the accumulated clear juices- open one corner of the baggie and pour off the juice.
- Run through a food mill to remove the seeds and skins.
To Use Fresh Tomatoes
- Wash, core, and halve tomatoes.
- Bring to a boil in a large stock pot. Remove from heat. (Reader Tip: “My new lazy way to start these recipes is to roast the tomatoes, its easier/faster than stovetop and goes through the processor easily. Simply wash, cut in half, cut the stem out and roast at 350 for around 20-40 minutes, depending on how many you’re roasting.”)
- Strain skin and seeds through a food mill.
Three Ways to Strain Tomatoes for Sauce
- Victorio Food Strainer and Sauce Maker (above top left). To me this maker is like the little girl with the curl: when it’s good, it’s very very good and when it’s bad…well, you know. Even though I’ve read you don’t need to heat the thawed frozen tomatoes, this food mill just didn’t want to work with them until I heated them a bit.
- Tripod/Cone Food Mill (Chinois): I ended up reverting back to my vintage metal tripod food mill (which you can still buy new – I guess some designs have staying power!) for some of the cold pulp, but it takes more elbow grease and doesn’t result in as much usable pulp as the Victorio.
- Electric Sauce Maker: This may be the easiest way to get tomato sauce ever! Shown above on the bottom is the FreshTech Harvest Pro Sauce Maker which is sadly not made anymore (see below for available substitutes). I’ve used this with both fresh tomatoes as well as frozen tomatoes and it works fabulously with both. I had sauce in no time without needing to bother with heating in any form. I truly do love using a machine – it really makes this easy (as well as other sauces like applesauce).
Since I use the electric sauce maker multiple times in a growing season for tomato products and apples because it saves so much time and effort, I’ve rounded up a couple options for you to check out since the one I use is no longer made:
- Weston Deluxe Electric Tomato Strainer, Food Mill, Sauce Maker
- VEVOR Electric Tomato Strainer, 400W Tomato Sauce Maker Machine (half price of the one above)
- KitchenAid KSMFVSP Fruit and Vegetable Attachment Strainer (most inexpensive option if you have a KitchenAid)
TIP: Idea for using up all the pulp from straining:
Spread all the pulp as thinly as you can on parchment-lined trays in a dehydrator and dry at 135 until it’s crisp and completely dry all the way through (this will take hours – the exact amount depends on your machine and humidity).
Once completely dry, break off pieces into a blender or food processor and whir until it’s even crumbles. Keep on the shelf in a mason jar and add to anything you’d like to thicken or flavor – soups, chili, and sauces!
Step 2: Make Pizza Sauce
- Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil for a few minutes and then add the tomato puree and all the seasonings. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and then simmer 30 minutes.
- Blend the sauce to make it smooth (yes, you’ll appreciate the smooth sauce on the pizza). You can carefully transfer batches to a blender or you can do what I do – use an immersion hand-held blender right in the pot.
- Bring back to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer the sauce on low until it thickens to your desired consistency. This will take 1-2 hours, depending on if you started with frozen tomatoes (less time) or fresh (more time). It also will depend on how juicy the tomatoes were you started with – paste tomatoes take less time, slicing are juicier and will take longer.
TIP: Sauce taking longer to thicken? I’ve gotten questions similar to this: “My sauce did not thicken after two hours of simmering (used fresh tomatoes) – why?”
Answer: Your tomatoes were probably juicier, which happens a lot with fresh tomatoes if you’re not pouring off juice from frozen tomatoes first. Also it depends on the type of tomato – slicing/heirloom tomatoes are much juicier than paste tomatoes. Just keep simmering! (This is why I like starting with frozen tomatoes so much!)
Step 3: Water Bath Can the Sauce (or Freeze)
Note: You can always freeze the sauce – let it cool and transfer to freezer safe containers for up to a year – but for the most convenience, can the pizza sauce to be shelf stable.
- Add lemon juice or citric acid to each jar, fill jar with 1/2-inch headspace, wipe rims, and attach lids. Do one jar at a time, adding each to the rack of a water bath canner before filling the next jar.
- Process both pints and half-pints for 35 minutes in a boiling-water canner.
- Remove to a towel-lined surface and let sit undisturbed for 24 hours.
TIP: I’ve found that both half-pint 8-ounce or 12-ounce jars are good sizes for medium-to-large pizzas. The 12-oz. jars are actually the perfect size but they’re harder to find, so use what you have (whole pints are too much, which causes the dough to not cook fully in the center, unless you regularly make 2 pizzas at a time).
If you’re new to canning this tutorial will take you through each step. You can also watch all the easy steps to water-bath canning in this video:
How much pizza sauce to make for a year?
We make this easy homemade pizza dough a couple times each month (every other Saturday, like I outline in my menu planning tips), though sometimes we make the pizza with pesto instead of tomato sauce so I aim to have 20-24 jars on our shelves in varying sizes to last a year.
Oh, and this sauce is also good in any Italian recipe, so it finds its way into things other than pizza – a lot.
Reader Raves
“I just used your recipe earlier this week & I must say kudos and thanks to you! It used up all the tomatoes from my garden perfectly and your freezer method was fabulous as my tomatoes came ripe at different times…We cannot wait to dig into this! Thanks so much for the great recipe!” -Nicole
“This is an incredible recipe. We have our jars processing in the water bath now. There was a little bit of sauce left in the pot that we ate up with bread. This recipe will be used for the years to come. Yummy!!!” -Roberta
“Thank you for the great recipe! Mine is simmering down now and smells awesome…I’m new to this canning thing so I get a little nervous but your post really was great in explaining everything.” -Susan
“This was freakin fantastic. I started with a half batch and once I tasted I knew I’d have to do more. If I wasn’t so greedy, I’d share with friends but I might like my new pizza sauce more than I like them.” -Kat
I hope you love this canned pizza sauce recipe, too – if you make it, be sure to leave a recipe rating so I know how you liked it! (Have a question? Scroll down to see if I’ve answered it!)
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Easy Canned Pizza Sauce Recipe With Frozen or Fresh Tomatoes
Equipment
- Sauce maker/food sieve
- 12-quart or large stock pot
- water bath canner and supplies if canning
- canning jars and lids if canning (freezer containers if freezing)
Ingredients
- 22 pounds tomatoes fresh or whole frozen
- 3 cups chopped onions
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons dried basil
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- 1/2-1 tablespoon black pepper, or to taste if you’re not as much a pepper fan as we are
- 1 tablespoon sugar or honey or to taste
- 2 tablespoons salt, canning salt or pure sea salt
- 1-2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes, to taste – use less if you're unsure or omit
- Bottled lemon juice or citric acid: 1 tablespoon lemon juice OR 1/4 teaspoon citric acid for EACH pint and 12-oz jars; 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice OR 1/8 teaspoon citric acid for EACH half-pint jars I usually use citric acid, as it doesn’t add more liquid to our sauce
Instructions
Prepare tomato puree from frozen tomatoes:
- (Assuming they were cleaned and cored before freezing) leave to thaw 24 hours; drain accumulated juices.
- Put the thawed tomatoes through a strainer to remove seeds and peels.
Prepare tomato puree from fresh tomatoes:
- Wash, core and halve tomatoes. Heat to boiling and then remove from heat (TIP: I use a 12-quart stockpot and a 6-quart soup pot for 22 pounds).
- Put through a strainer while warm to remove seeds and peels.
Make the pizza sauce:
- In a 12-quart or larger stockpot cook onions and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat until the onion softens, 5-10 minutes. Add tomato puree and all the seasonings (basil through pepper flakes). Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook for about 30 minutes, uncovered. Process with an immersion blender to make a smoother sauce (or carefully blend in batches).
- Bring back to a boil; reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until sauce reaches desired consistency (reduced by 1/4 to 1/3), usually an hour or two, depending on if you started with fresh or frozen tomatoes (it may take longer – cook until desired consistency). Make sure to stir occasionally to prevent sticking (TIP: if you have a thin-bottomed stock-pot, stir more often to prevent scorching).
Water-Bath Can:
- Add the lemon juice or citric acid to each clean, warm jar, fill jar with sauce leaving 1/2-inch headspace and attach lids and rings until fingertip-tight. Place in canner rack and repeat with remaining jars to fill canner (keep sauce and jars warm, as you will need to do a couple canner loads when using half-pints-see how to water bath can here).
- Process both pints and half-pints for 35 minutes in a boiling-water canner.
- Remove to a towel-lined surface and let sit undisturbed for 24 hours before checking seals, labeling and storing in a cool, dark place.
Notes
Nutrition
Your Questions Answered
Yes, I do that all the time. Just keep all the measurements halved exactly.
No – fresh herbs are low acid and the recipe is based off the tested Ball canning recipe that uses only dried herbs so it would be a safety issue with the ratios of low-to high acid off.
Also for cooked and canned products like this, dried herbs hold their flavor better (some fresh herbs actually turn bitter when cooked and canned).
Nope, those are both low acid ingredients and will throw off the ratios for safely canning and storing on a shelf. You can do that and freeze the sauce, though.
The 22 pounds would be the total weight fresh or frozen before anything is removed or drained. (Fresh and frozen weight will be the same, but if you’re coring before freezing, then you’d want to weight beforehand and write the pounds on the outside of the baggie.)
I have only just read that this year (2024) and I have been doing pouring off the juice for many years, as have many canners like me. I learned it from a master canner and recently read of another who also pours off the juice to save time cooking, too. All that to say – I haven’t found any research on this as to the amount of acid that’s potentially being lost (all tomatoes vary in acidity anyway) AND we add citric acid to each jar. I will continue to pour off the juice from thawing and keep the jars on a shelf and am totally comfortable with that, but you obviously need to do what you are comfortable with.
No, adding any thickener like paste before processing will create a new density that hasn’t been tested. You can cook the sauce down longer, but not add anything else before processing.
You can use a small amount of oil to sauté vegetables – as the original, tested Ball Blue Book Seasoned Tomato Sauce recipe that this was based on does (found on page 33 of this most recent version). Here’s a seasoned sauce that is online and uses some olive oil.
Yes, as long as there are only tomatoes listed as the ingredients. A 14.5 ounce can equals about 1 pound of tomatoes, so you’d need 22 cans.
You can do two things: reprocess the jars (open them, add to a pot and bring to a boil again before canning again) or simply store the jars in the refrigerator (which is what I do – it happens to everyone!).
Yes, you can totally to that! I often do things like that to break up preserving tasks.
I can’t say exactly, because it depends on what kind of food mill you use (some get more pulp/puree from the tomatoes than others), but I’d estimate around 17-18 cups which should cook down to the 14-15 cups to get the 7-8 pint yield.
More Easy Canned Tomato Recipes
- Water-Bath Safe Canned Roasted Tomato Sauce
- Addictive Tomato Chutney
- Nice and Thick Salsa for Canning
This recipe has been updated – it was originally published in 2014.
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Hi there! I am new to canning and was wondering if it is safe to make this recipe but omit the onions and otherwise make it the same? Is the lemon juice the only key part for safety?
Hi there! The ratios of higher acid ingredients (tomatoes) to lower acid (onions, garlic) is one of the things that make a canning recipe safe, in addition to added lemon juice (or vinegar in some recipes).
That said, you can always leave out a low acid ingredient like onions since the higher acid ingredients would remain the same (you just don’t ever want to increase low acid fresh things without increasing the tomatoes and lemon juice).
Hope that clarifies things!
Thank you so much for this recipe! My mamaw passed away this past December so I’ve been canning most everything from papaws garden. I wanted to make something fun and to bring the family together. This recipe was perfect and I can’t wait to share it with my family! Thank you!
Oh, that’s so sweet, Becca – I’m so glad to have had a part in bringing your family together over pizza. 🙂
I have two gallon ziploc bags of chopped, seeded tomatoes from the garden in the freezer, but I don’t know how many pounds there were to start. Do you know about how many cups of chopped tomatoes 22 pounds is?
Well, I’ve read there are about 2-1/2 cups per pound of tomatoes, BUT the measurements for the rest of the recipe that’s safe for canning wouldn’t be right because it’s for the tomatoes before they’ve been cored and cut. To be honest, it’s probably not going to matter as much for this recipe, but I will go on record as saying you’d be safest to freeze the sauce if you make it since your measurements won’t be the same.:)
Question regarding the oil in the recipe. I can’t find any recipe that safely allows the addition of oil when canning. Can you provide the original recipe you adapted this from?
This recipe is basically a half recipe of Ball Blue Book’s Seasoned Tomato Sauce, just with different dry spices to make it a pizza sauce. I’m not sure if it’s online, but it’s in the Blue Book.
Also, lots of water-bath sauces use oil to cook vegetables first, not just the recipe I used. Here’s one that is online: https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=basil-garlic-tomato-sauce
It’s usually a little oil, though, in comparison to the amount of acid tomatoes.
Thanks for the recipe! I made it but with frozen tomatoes I defrosted. I drained them but I think maybe too much? It tastes wonderful. But my sauce turned out more like paste. Very thick. Anyway I split the recipe and have more frozen tomatoes to try. Perhaps I’ll try without draining them at all.
Wow, that hasn’t happened before to me! I would add the water you need to create a pourable sauce and then can that (the canning times are for sauce not paste – thicker products need more time).
Made your pizza sauce this fall and we love it! I’ve never canned pizza sauce before and I’m so glad I found your recipe! I didn’t have any romas so I used some early girl and Black Crim tomatoes. I squeezed the seeds and extra juice out then measured. It took quite a while to simmer it down to the right thickness but it was well worth it. I make homemade pizza once a week but we don’t care for store bought pizza sauce. This is perfect. I made a pizza last week and we loved the sauce. Will make it again and again! I have also used your salsa recipe for several years. Everyone loves it! Love your recipes!
Oh, I’m so glad Trish! The same thing has happened to me when I didn’t have enough paste tomatoes – I takes hours, but the smell is great, lol.
This recipe seems really good, smells and looks great except I put the 1 Tablespoon of pepper AND the pepper flakes…OMG TOO much just to warn others I will have to add MORE tomato sauce to this when using. Kind of thinking the 1 Tablespoon should have been 1 teaspoon.
Lol, thanks for your take on it – I did make sure to say “to taste” but I did update with a range of measurements to help clarify.
Oh, and I definitely use a whole tablespoon of black pepper and the 2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes, but we like things spicy. 🙂
This is the best…..the method and the recipe!!! I am so excited to have my own pizza sauce. Because of Covid we could not find jar lids in our area last summer and fall. Go figure!! So I came across this recipe and froze some tomatoes. And yes, I just today got around to making the sauce. It is so thick and beautiful. I have a Squeezo. I don’t know if it’s because we drained a ton of juice, but the pulp came out very thick. I basically cooked it to get the flavors to meld together but did not need to cook it to get it to thicken.
Sounds like serendipity, Yvonne, because you had to freeze your tomatoes and discovered the secret to making sauce in less time. 🙂
Yes, it is because of the juice drained – isn’t it wonderful to have such a great sauce on hand?
Enjoy your pizzas!
This recipe is nice. I followed it exactly. I was looking for something more paste like for pizza sauce. As is, I’d say this is more like pasta sauce. I reduced my sauce down by 1/3.
Good, Katherine – you can definitely keep cooking until it’s the consistency you want.
Can I add tomato paste to the recipe to thicken it up without messing up the canning process? Thanks!
No, adding paste would mess with the consistency that’s been tested for this amount of processing time.
You can make a note on the lid to add paste when you use it if you don’t want to cook it down anymore.
Hi! This recipe looks great and I started it last night with fresh tomatoes. After bringing to a boil and straining however, I’m left with what looks like pure tomato juice. That doesn’t seem right…..
Wheat did I do wrong, and do you have any ideas of what I can do with the juice I now have? Or even the tomato pulp and seeds I strained away?
Thank you!
It does look thin, especially if you started with fresh tomatoes – that’s where the cooking down comes into play. You’ll need to cook it at a simmer for the number of hours it takes to get to a thickness you like before canning.
As for the pulp/skin/seeds – some people dry this and blend into a tomato powder to add to recipes.
Hi Jami,
I accidentally used 2 TBSP of red pepper flakes. Is there anything I can do to counteract the spiciness? I am canning my sauce.
Yikes, not that I know of other than doubling the other ingredients. 🙁
This recipe was great!!! Until I forgot to add the lemon juice into the jars..DOH. what does this mean?!
Oh, shoot, Michelle! If it helps it happens a lot – including to me, lol.
For safety’s sake, I would store the jars in the fridge.
made my first ever pizza sauce ever . It was amazing. i have just started making our own pizzas so i wanted to make this also. We have a flour mill in the next county over, we buy all our flour and meal there. They had a pizza dough mix which is really easy to make and good. I look forward to making more of your recipes in the future.
Ginny
P.S I bought a food mill this year and has it ever saved me a lot of time with it. Used it for tomato juice, tomato salsa,
blackberry jam and will use it to make apple jelly in a few weeks.
Thanks
Yay, Ginny! You will love having this ready. I have an electric mill that saves a lot of time, too, though I like the salsa chunky. 🙂
Is the amount of salt listed (2TBS) correct? I followed the recipe exactly and it was so salty it was inedible.
Yes, that’s correct for 22 pounds of tomatoes and the other ingredients. It comes out to less than a teaspoon per pint. It’s also the amount listed in the original Ball Blue Book recipe.
I’ve never had it be too salty and yours is the first comment for that. Wondering if you used the full 22 pounds or if any of your other ingredients contained salt you didn’t know about?
That said, you can adjust the salt to your taste – it’s not there for any safety reason.
Can I use fresh basil and more garlic? Thanks 🙂
Nope, those are both low acid ingredients and will throw off the ratios for safely canning and storing on a shelf.
You can do that and freeze the sauce, though.
I ran my tomatoes threw a squeezo how many cups of the puree would get me to 22 pounds?
I always weigh the tomatoes before processing and then add them to the pot as I go, Bill, so I don’t have a cup measurement. The Ball Blue Book recipe only calls for pounds and doesn’t mention cups.
My new lazy way to start these recipes is to roast the tomatoes, its easier/faster than stovetop and goes through the processor easily. Simply wash, cut in half, cut the stem out and roast at 350 for around 20-40 minutes (depending on how many you’re roasting). I’ve not frozen them, BUT with sporadic harvests that’s a great tip! (Especially if you’re waiting for a cooler day to can).
Thanks for the recipe.
Great tip – thanks! I do roast tomatoes for a tomato sauce I have on the site, but hadn’t thought to do it for this recipe.
This recipe looks awesome! We are looking for ways to enjoy pizza but frozen and takeout are loaded with sodium. I found a wonderful crust recipe and was looking for a great sauce recipe. We have a freezer full of tomatoes. Here is my question: Is the weight of the tomatoes in the recipe a pre-drained weight or a post-drained weight? The tomatoes we froze aren’t Romas and will have quite a bit of juice. I want to try the recipe with them anyway but want to be sure I have the right starting weight. Thank you!
They are pre-drained weight, Christi. It’s the idea that you’d start with X pounds of fresh and then cook them down for hours and hours – we’re just moving the cooking part along by draining them first. You should be okay with slicing tomatoes (I used about half), you just might have to cook yours down a bit more and so may end up with less finished half pints/pints.
Hope this works for you!
Hi Jami,
When doing the 1/2 pints for pizza sauce you said to keep them warm because a couple batches will need to be done. How do you normally keep them warm until the jars can be processed?
I just keep them in the sink full of hot water. I change out the water once while processing. It keeps them warm enough. (I show this in my How to Water Bath Can video, too.)
Your recipe looks great! I’m going to be making your pizza sauce tomorrow. We love pizza year round and I always make my own sauce but this year I’d like to can some but I want to pressure can it. I can’t seem to find out at what pressure to can this at or how many pounds of pressure. Would you be able to help me with this please? Thanks so much!
Hi Sandra – I would use this guideline from the national center for home preserving for tomato sauce. Go with the thick sauce guidelines (basically pizza sauce is just a bit thicker tomato sauce with spices) and which type of pressure canner you have. Hope that helps!
I ended up not being able to make it that night so this works out perfectly! Thanks so much for your help!
Oh, good!
Awesome recipe, I’m going to try it.