Tomato Soup Recipe: How to make and can tomato soup at home - easily! With step by step photos, recipe ingredients and costs

Wash, remove stems, and trim off bruised or discolored portions of the tomatoes. Generally, you’ll need about 2 quarts of raw tomatoes to make 1 quart of chopped, peeled tomatoes, and each quarts of the prepared tomatoes makes about 1 pint of soup. A bushel of tomatoes weighs 53 pounds.

At right is a picture of tomatoes from my garden - they are so much better than anything from the grocery store. And if you don't have enough, a pick-you-own farm is the pace to go! At right are 4 common varieties that will work:

Top left: Beefsteak	Top right: Lemon Boy, yellow
Bottom left: Roma, paste-type	Bottom right: Better Boy

The picture at right shows the best variety of tomato to use: Roma; also called paste tomatoes. They have fewer sides, thicker, meatier walls, and less water. And that means thicker sauce in less cooking time!

Caution: Do not can tomatoes from dead or frost-killed vines. Green tomatoes are more acidic than ripened fruit and can be canned safely, also.

Step 2 - Dice the other ingredients

Finely chop, dice or use your food processor on the onions, celery, basil and garlic

Step 3 - Wash the jars and lids

Now's a good time to get the jars ready, so you won't be rushed later. The dishwasher is fine for the jars; especially if it has a "sterilize" cycle, the water bath processing will sterilize them as well as the contents! If you don't have a dishwasher with a sterilize cycle, you can wash the containers in hot, soapy water and rinse, then sterilize the jars by boiling them 10 minutes, and keep the jars in hot water until they are used.

NOTE: If unsterilized jars are used, the product should be processed for 5 more minutes. However, since this additional processing can result in a poor set (runny jam), it’s better to sterilize the jars.

Put the lids into a pan of hot, but not quite boiling water (that's what the manufacturer's recommend) for 5 minutes, and use the magnetic "lid lifter wand" to pull them out. Leave the jars in the dishwasher on "heated dry" until you are ready to use them. Keeping them hot will prevent the jars from breaking when you fill them with the hot jam.

Lids: put the lids into a pan of hot water for at least several minutes; to soften up the gummed surface and clean the lids.

Step 4 - Cut up the tomatoes and quickly put into the pot

To prevent the juice from separating, quickly cut about 1 pound of tomatoes at a time into quarters and put directly into a saucepan on the stove. (If you are not concerned about juice separation, simply slice or quarter all of the tomatoes at once into a large saucepan.)

Step 5 - Heat to boiling and keep adding tomatoes

Heat immediately to boiling while crushing (I use a potato masher). Continue to slowly add and crush freshly cut tomato quarters to the boiling mixture; repeating steps 4 and 5. Make sure the mixture boils constantly and vigorously while you add the remaining tomatoes.

Step 6 - Add the other ingredients and continue cooking

Step 7 - Sieve

Press the heated tomato soup through a sieve or food mill to remove skins and seeds. I use the Foley food mill, shown at right. You could also use a blender or food processer instead.

There is also a VERY nice, versatile strainer pictured at below! Click on the links there or see the bottom of this page for more information and to order! The VillaWare model can handle higher volumes than a Foley food mill (without giving you cramps!) And yes, you can use your juicer, if it can handle boiling hot liquids!

Step 8 - Heat the strained tomato soup again

Heat the soup again to boiling. Now add the salt and sugar/honey and/or Splenda.

Step 9 - Fill the jars and put the lid and rings on

Fill jars with hot tomato soup, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process following to the instructions in your pressure canner's manual for vegetable soups, if there isn't instruction for tomato soup.

The Ball Blue Book recommends processing at 10 pounds of pressure for 20 minutes, for a similar recipe (Spicy tomato soup). The National Home Food Preservation Center does not have a recommended processing time or recipe for tomato soup, so I use the Ball Blue Book number: 20 minutes.

All agree that a pressure canner is required, because tomatoes are borderline as an acid food, anyway, and we add some non acid foods. It would be too risk to use a water bath canner, unless you simply made plain tomato juice (see this page), including acidifying it, and boiled it down more.

Step 10 - Remove the jars

Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool on a wooden cutting board or a towel, without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight), here they won't be bumped. You can then remove the rings if you like. Once the jars are cool, you can check that they are sealed verifying that the lid has been sucked down. Just press in the center, gently, with your finger. If it pops up and down (often making a popping sound), it is not sealed. If you put the jar in the refrigerator right away, you can still use it. Some people replace the lid and reprocess the jar, then that's a bit iffy. If you heat the contents back up, re-jar them (with a new lid) and the full time in the canner, it's usually ok. You're done!

Once cooled, they're ready to store. I find they last up to 12 months. But after about 6 to 8 months, they get darker in color and start to get runny. They still are safe to eat, but the flavor and texture aren't as good. So eat them in the first 6 months after you prepare them!

Other Equipment:

From left to right:

Jar lifting tongs
to pick up hot jars
Lid lifter
- to remove lids from the pot
of boiling water (sterilizing )
Lid
- disposable - you may only
use them once
Ring
- holds the lids on the jar until after
the jars cool - then you don't need them
Canning jar funnel
- to fill the jars

You can get all of the tools in a kit here:

Home Canning Kits

Features:

* All the tools you need for hot waterbath canning - in one comprehensive set!
* Complete with 21 1/2 qt. enameled waterbath canner and "Ball Blue Book" of canning.
* Also includes canning rack, funnel, jar lifter, jar wrencher, bubble freer, tongs and lid lifter.
* A Kitchen Krafts exclusive collection.

This is the same type of standard canner that my grandmother used to make everything from applesauce to jams and jellies to tomato and spaghetti sauce. This complete kit includes everything you need and lasts for years: the canner, jar rack, jar grabber tongs, lid lifting wand, a plastic funnel, labels, bubble freer, and the bible of canning, the Ball Blue Book. It's much cheaper than buying the items separately. You'll never need anything else except jars and lids (and the jars are reusable). To see more canners, of different styles, makes and prices, click here!

Click here for a larger photo, more information, pricing, ordering, etc.

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Canning books

Canning & Preserving for Dummies
by Karen Ward
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The Ball Blue Book of Preserving

This is THE book on canning! My grandmother used this book when I was a child. It tells you in simple instructions how to can almost anything; complete with recipes for jam, jellies, pickles, sauces, canning vegetables, meats, etc. If it can be canned, this book likely tells you how! Click on the link below for more information and / or to buy (no obligation to buy)

Price $8.95

Summary - Typical Cost of Making Homemade Jam - makes 8 jars, 8 oz each**
Item	Quantity	Cost in 2006	Source	Subtotal
Berries (strawberries)	1 gallon	$8.00/gallon	Pick your own	$8.00
Canning jars (8 oz size), includes lids and rings	18 jars	$7.00/dozen	Grocery stores, like Public, Kroger, Safeway and sometimes, Big Lots, local hardware stores and big box stores	$10.00
Sugar	4 cups	$2.00	Grocery stores, like Public, Kroger, Safeway and sometimes, Big Lots, local hardware stores and big box stores	$2.00
Pectin (low sugar, dry)	1 and a third boxes *	$2.00 per box	Grocery stores, like Public, Kroger, Safeway and sometimes, Big Lots, local hardware stores and big box stores	$2.70
Total				$22.70 total or about $1.25 per jar
* pectin use varies - blackberry jam needs very little, raspberry a little more, strawberry the most. ** - This assumes you already have the pots, pans, ladles, and reusable equipment. Note that you can reuse the jars and reduce the cost further; just buy new lids (the rings are reusable, but the flat lids are not)!

How to Make Home and Can Tomato Soup or Tomato Basil Soup at Home - Easily!

Ingredients

Equipment

Optional stuff:

Step 1 - Selecting the tomatoes