10 Minute Pressure Canned Tomatoes

Intro: 10 Minute Pressure Canned Tomatoes

No pantry would be complete without home canned tomatoes :) I can "raw pack" and "stewed" for many future meals. If you think you don't need a pressure canner then canning tomatoes will make you change your mind. Processing them in a pressure canner for only ten minutes is so much nicer than 85 minutes in a hot water bath!

STEP 1: Boiling Water

Start out with lots of tomatoes. It doesn't matter if they have blemishes, marks, or whatever, most of them will be used. Wash them up but do get rid of any that are in really bad shape.
Drop them into boiling water for about 30 seconds or so. Small batches at a time.

STEP 2: Ice Water

Remove them from the boiling water and drop into cold ice water. This helps the skins peel right off.

STEP 3: Time to Peel

When you get a whole sink full it's time to slip the skins off.  Most times the bad parts will come right off with the skins, if not then simply cut out the bad areas.

STEP 4: Core

I then take a small cheapy knife and cut out the core. Check the bottom and remove it if it hasn't already slipped off with the skin.
Cut them into quarter size pieces. You can leave them whole, half, or whatever size you prefer.

STEP 5: Headspace

All jars should be filled leaving a 1 inch headspace, adjust if necessary.

STEP 6: Lemon Juice

Once all your jars are filled it's time to add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. This is a must because tomatoes are considered "low acid."

STEP 7: Coarse Salt

Add 1 teaspoon of coarse salt. The salt is optional but it does enhance the flavour.

STEP 8: Tomato Juice

Once I have all my jars filled with tomatoes I pour in canned tomato juice so my tomatoes don't end up looking watery. This is optional. Yes I could make my own juice but I find it much easier to buy the cans :) I used about 2 and a half cans for 24 quarts of tomatoes.

STEP 9: Remove Air Bubbles and Clean Rims

Take a plastic knife and run it around the inside of the jar to get rid of the air bubbles and pour in more tomato juice if necessary.
Wipe the rims with a hot paper towel until they are squeaky clean. Check for any stray seeds.

STEP 10: Hot Lids

Bring water to a boil in a pot, turn heat off and add as many lids as you need. After 10 minutes place on your clean jars, screw on bands (finger tight, do not over tighten!), and put them in your pressure canner.  Never place cold jars into boiling water (or vice versa) because they will break. Remember cold jars=cold water / hot jars=hot water, so add your water, then your jars, and then turn on the heat.

Tip:   After adding about two inches of water to my pressure canner I add a few glugs of vinegar because we have hard water and it keeps the white off the jars. Place lid on pressure canner.

STEP 11: Processing

Don't forget to vent your pressure canner. When the canner is up to pressure, process at 10 pounds for 10 minutes.  Turn off heat after ten minutes and wait 'until the pressure drops to zero before removing lid.  Remove jars, and let sit undisturbed for 24 hours. Check seals, remove rings, wash in hot soapy water, and sit back to admire all the work you've done :)

Comments

[Janet Kaye Stefko]

I am brand new to canning. I am going to try this summer . What type of pressure cooker is best and will it come with directions on how to use it? Thanks Will post pictures and updates.

[boblisa]

Your timing for tomatoes packed in juice is quite wrong. If you have processed according to your recommendations the product is not safe. You also need to add time if your altitude is above 1,000 ft. Here are the correct times:

[mubbysharleys]

What setting do I use on the pressure cooker

[JuliaD49]

I just pressure canned 7 pints of tomatoes. 3 jars have a 1/2 inch of air at the top, and the other 4 have an inch of water at the base while the tomatoes are floating at the top. Is this normal for either situation?

[justkyle]

I'm a little confused. my ball canning book never said anything about adding acid to tomatoes for water bath. does the lemon juice change the flavor?

[CarinaC1]

Thanks, this was great. I just finished my first time canning by myself, and with these instructions it was easy.

[TimN5]

Excellent coverage of this topic. Complete, simple, and concise. Thanks.

[KarenM18]

I used pint jars with my PC at 11 psi.......What timing do I use for quarts??

[kansasa]

10 minutes.

[sarahw2]

o I see. seems too long of time to boil

[sarahw2]

I just boiled my tomato juice with lemon and sea salt, in one batch poured into jars /wiped edges and boiled , some jar lids popped and some are still popping as they cool down, did I do it right? . not sure about how long to boil the jars? and can I just freeze my jars ? never have frozen anything in glass before . doesn't really sound like a good idea I don't think.:)lol ???????

[sharonm1]

why did I process tomatoes with my old canner at 5 labs pressure for 10 minutes, and my new canner says 11lbs for 25 minutes? Seems like an awfully long time for whole tomatoes..

[jewisonm]

I borrowed a pressure cooker last fall and tried it out, but it took over an hour for the water to get up to pressure. I was thinking it might be missing a part? Maybe a washer somewhere that is letting air escape? And yes, I had the weight. I did everything the same as you wrote in your post, except that the instructions said to fill water so they covered the jars by an inch. Could this be the problem? Thanks so much!

[kansasa]

You only need to cover jars by an inch if you are using a water bath canner NOT a pressure cooker/canner. Next time try only a couple of inches of water.

[Darcy777]

Pressure canning is for low acidic food so is the lemon juice required due to the 10 minute canning time? For those of you who have an aluminum rack for the jars to sit on, do not add acid to the water, it eats away at the aluminum.

[kansasa]

"Acid is added to tomato products even if the tomatoes are pressure canned." Quoted from page 2 http://www.foodsafety.wisc.edu/assets/preservation/uwex_addacidtomatoes.pdf
I would think the amount of vinegar added to the water would minimally impact the rack and would take years to eat away the aluminum but ymmv. :)

[puggirl415]

Wow this only got 12 comments? This was a very concise and clear tutorial on an important topic. I got my friends started canning with tomatoes and right away they saw the limitations of the WB method. They started calling me and telling me they wanted to can the spaghetti sauce or borscht they made with the tomatoes. I had to disappoint them by telling them they couldn't do those foods in a WB.

I started canning in 2010 and after much research settled on the all-american pressure canner. I felt that waterbath canning was too limited for me as I prefer low acid foods in general compared to sweets and pickles. Plus you can also waterbath can in it. Sold! I pressure can everything from tomatoes to beef stock. I don't ever want to have to buy a gasket or wash one or fit one on my canner.

Canning tomatos right now: Put hot water in PC. Add jars and water partway and put to a boil with lid off. While the water boils and the jars heat, bring sauce to a simmer and in a seperate pot bring lids to a simmer. All this takes about 10-15 minutes. (3 jobs at once)
Take jars out of the canner. Fill with hot sauce, put in canner and screw down lid. Water is already simmering so the venting starts right away. 10 minutes to vent, 10 minutes to can. 10-15 minutes til the canner pressure is down to 0 naturally. So it takes 40-50 minutes from start to finish once your tomatoes are ready.

WB fill stockpot up with hot water and jars. Bring to a boil. (20 minutes or longer) Pull jars out and put in warm oven on a cookie sheet. Heat lids, Simmer sauce, put in jars and put in water bath. (10 min) Bring WB back to a rolling boil. (sorry but this can take another 10-20 minutes depending on how long it takes your sauce to heat up to boiling) Start timing only after the rolling boil is achieved. Boil for 45 minutes. That adds up to 95+ minutes or so. It is almost 2x as long. When you have several batches to do that really adds up.

[kansasa]

Darn, had a reply here but it disappeared! Will try again.
You think the same as me! I love the pressure cooker much better than the hwb. I even went and bought a steam canner and love it too! It uses about 2 inches of water so it's quick to boil, it's fantastic for sterilizing jars, and it's light to pack to the sink and back. There's controversy over it but so far I'm loving it along with my pressure canners. :)

[amtrudell]

Using the lemon juice in the tomatoes to acidify them, you can process pints in 35 minutes, quarts in 45. What is not mentioned in this Instructable is that venting time (ten minutes after the water boils in your pressure canner) plus getting your canner up to pressure (another ten to fifteen minutes) plus letting the pressure go down (another 15 minutes or more) brings your real processing time to 45 minutes or more. I'm basing my times on using a gas stove; a neighbor with an electric stove found these additional times were even longer.

[kansasa]

But add quite a bit of time to bring your hot water bath canner which is filled to the brim with water to boil (1-2 inches over the jar lids), plus add the extra processing time, and don't forget the need to sterilize your jars, all this adds to the time. A pressure canner you only need about 2 inches of water so it comes to boil a lot quicker and eliminate the need to sterilize your jars due to the extra heat in a pressure canner thus saving more time. And yes I do mention venting the pressure canner.
I have canned tomatoes both ways and, in my opinion, it's much quicker to can in a pressure canner.