Home canning tomatoes is a smart money saver. This month when you shop for food, stop to notice how many tomato based products you buy and then have to lug home.

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Home canning tomatoes when they are bursting out in season this summer will save you plenty of money, that is a given.

Just think how little it would cost you to put 4 tomato plants in your garden this year. Maybe $5.00 each if you buy them as good 15" starts.

I did exactly that and my plants were producing entire laundry baskets full of ripe ready to process organic tomatoes. Every week more came on. I choose one heirloom, two Roma's and one Better boy.

Now how much does ONE 32 oz. can of diced tomatoes cost in your area? In mine it can be as much as $ 1.79. For one can.

Are you ready to start home canning tomatoes now? Great! Let's go. First, if you don't have your own garden, don't worry. In the summertime just find local u-pick farms and go get yourself a big box of ripe tomatoes.

Roma, or paste tomatoes work great if you are canning tomato sauce or canning stewed tomatoes. Check out why at Canning Roma Tomatoes.

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At home you will need to have a water bath canner with lid, tongs, ball canning jars, a jar funnel, lids and rings. Pick up a bottle of lemon juice too, and large spoons and ladles if you don't have one or two on hand.

Canning Tomatoes

Sterilize your jars using either boiling water using your water bath canner, or the dishwasher on the sterilize setting. Lids are placed in a shallow pan of hot water, but do not boil them with the jars as the sealant cannot withstand that much heat.

Make a pot of boiling water and a bowl of ice water. Get the boiling water going and plunge a batch of tomatoes in it for about 1 minute. Then lift them out dunk them in a big bowl of ice water.

Then you can easily slip the skins right off! (Skins are tough and chewy so we have to remove them when home canning tomatoes either while canning tomato sauce or canning stewed tomatoes.

Fill the sterilized jars with whole or cut tomatoes. They should be full to 1/4 " from the top.

Add 2 Tablespoons lemon juice, and then complete the fill using either boiled water or very hot tomato juice.

Free any trapped air bubbles (which we don't want in our jars) by sliding a clean flat utensil, perhaps a spoon handle, up and around the inside of the jar.

Place the lids and rings on the jars

Get you water bath canner full of water at a rolling boil. Place the jars in, making sure they are covered by at least 1" of water at all times.

Boil hot pack tomatoes Pints 35 minutes and quarts 45 minutes. If you are at an altitude of 1001 ft. to 3000 ft. add 5 minutes more.

3001ft. to 6000 ft. Gets treated to another 10 minutes and those above 6000 ft. gets 15 minutes additional time calculated from the low of 35 minutes.

After processing time is complete, lift the jars out and place them on a table to cool. Don't let them touch each other until they cool off, sort of like cranky kids.

After they cool overnight, test the seal by making sure the lids are sucked down for food safety. Just press the center of each lid and see if it pops up and down.

If so, it cannot be stored. You can either put it in the fridge and eat it that week, or put the tomatoes in a new sterilized jar with a new lid and reprocess for the full time once again.

You can also begin home canning tomatoes and home canning tomato sauce in a Pressure Canner, which is the safest method of processing most foods.

Using a clean damp cloth, wipe rims of any material so the contact surfaces with be able to seal.

There, you have lovely canned tomatoes to eat all winter long, and no more lugging home commercial cans of overpriced tomato products.

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Every time you want to make spaghetti, lasagna, chili or marinara, to name just a few, you will have the tomatoes right at your fingertips.

Check out our page on canning spaghetti sauce too!