Easiest Homemade Tomato Sauce & Tomato Broth
We’ve got loads of tomatoes coming off the farm at the moment, and when you’ve got more than you can eat fresh, it’s worth bringing back an old skill of preserving the harvest. There’s something really satisfying about taking a glut of ripe, seasonal tomatoes and saving them for later, especially when you’ve grown them yourself. And you don’t need to spend hours boiling jars or worrying about canning. This is our very simple way of doing it with no boiling and no complicated preserving equipment.
Takes 12 hours 10 minutes
Serves 8
Ingredients
- 2 kg ripe sweet tomatoes (about 4½ lb), such as plum, Roma or vine-ripened
- 10 g fine sea salt about 2 tsp
- 1 x 3 litre glass beverage dispenser with a bottom tap
- Freezer bags silicone bags or freezer-safe containers
Instructions
Blend the tomatoes
- Quarter the tomatoes and add them to a blender. Pulse in short bursts until they break down into a rough liquid purée. You don’t want to blend for too long or on too high a speed, as this can whip too much air into the tomatoes.
Add the salt
- Stir the salt through the tomato purée. The salt helps draw the water out of the tomatoes as they rest, allowing the clear tomato liquid to separate from the thicker pulp.
Leave to separate
- Make sure the tap on your dispenser is tightly closed, then pour in the salted tomato mixture.
- Cover and place in the fridge for 8–12 hours, ideally overnight. As it rests, the thicker tomato pulp will rise to the top while a clear, golden tomato water settles at the bottom.
Drain the tomato water
- Place a jug or bottle underneath the tap and slowly drain off the clear tomato water.
- Keep an eye on the tap and close it as soon as you see red tomato pulp starting to come through.
- The tomato water is brilliant for adding savoury depth to risottos, dressings, sauces and cocktails. Store it in the fridge or freeze it in ice cube trays so you can use a little at a time.
Freeze the tomato pulp
- Scoop the remaining thick tomato pulp from the top of the dispenser into freezer bags or containers.
- For freezer bags, press out as much air as possible, seal and lay them flat on a tray before freezing. Once frozen, they’re easy to stack and break off as needed.
- If using freezer-safe containers or straight-sided glass jars, leave at least 2.5cm (1 inch) of space at the top to allow the tomato mixture to expand as it freezes.
- Then, when tomato season is over, you’ve got a stash of summer tomatoes ready to turn into something delicious.