How To Make Tomato Paste
Buy tomatoes while they're cheap this summer and you'll be enjoying your bounty all winter long in soups and stews with this homemade tomato paste.
Makes20 to 24 ounces
Prep1 hour
Cook3 hours to 4 hours
Homemade tomato paste is an entirely different — and utterly more delicious — beast than the kind you can buy at the supermarket. It takes about a day to make (happily, much of that work is hands-off), and in the end, you’ll have enough tomato paste to last you through several cooking projects. In my book, homemade is worth the effort every time.
In this recipe, you’ll only need four ingredients and you’ll go through a process that includes passing the tomatoes through a food mill and baking the tomato pulp until reduced to paste.
Tips for Making Tomato Paste
- Go for Roma or San Marzano tomatoes for the greatest yield.
- Use a food mill, sieve, or chinois to separate the tomato pulp from the seeds and skins.
- As you bake the tomato pulp, the paste will reduced by more than half and it will look shiny and brick-colored.
- Portion the finished paste into ice cube trays, freeze, and then bag and label.
Homemade vs. Store-Bought Tomato Paste
Most of us know tomato paste as a pantry staple, bought in either small tin cans or (more expensively) imported tubes for easier dispensing. The grocery versions are rarely anything special — just containers of dense, smooth tomato concentrate.
When you make it yourself, you get to choose the tomatoes you use, and thus the flavor of the finished concentrate. Slow-cooking also gives the paste a hearty, rich flavor unlike the store-bought counterpart.
Choosing the Right Tomatoes for Tomato Paste
There is one thing you should keep in mind: While any tomato can be used to make paste, the kind of tomato you pick will make a difference in your final yield. The times when I’ve made it with heirloom slicing tomatoes, my finished yield filled just three tiny jars; the times when I’ve used meaty paste tomatoes, I got almost twice that. So bear that in mind before diving in with those precious heirlooms.
Storing Homemade Tomato Paste
The recipe below gives directions for boil-water canning this tomato paste, but if you’d like to take the easy way out, portion the finished paste into ice cube trays, freeze, and then bag and label the frozen cubes. Anytime you need just a small amount of tomato paste, pull out a cube. These cubes can be frozen for up to nine months.
How to Use Homemade Tomato Paste
Homemade tomato paste works beautifully in all the traditional places, like soups, stews, and chili. However, the long oven roasting gives it the kind of intense tomato-y flavor that also makes it delicious scraped on toasted baguette rounds and topped with fresh ricotta cheese or painted into a spinach omelet.
Tester’s Note
The most frequently asked questions about this recipe are as follows: “Can I use lemon juice instead of citric acid?” and “Is it worth it?” First, yes, you can use lemon juice, but it must be the bottled variety, which is pasteurized and has a more consistent acidity than freshly squeezed. The Center for Home Preservation recommends 2 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice for this amount of tomatoes.
What’s Tomato Preserving 2.0?
When it comes to tomatoes, perhaps you’ve got the basics covered. You’ve made fresh tomato sauce, or roasted them, or thrown a bag in the freezer for easy peeling and sauce-making later. So what’s next?
Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars is guiding us through Tomato Preserving 2.0 — cooking lessons and good ideas for when you’re ready to move on to the next level of preserving tomatoes.
Learn the Basics
How To Make Tomato Paste
Buy tomatoes while they're cheap this summer and you'll be enjoying your bounty all winter long in soups and stews with this homemade tomato paste.
Prep time 1 hour
Cook time 3 hours to 4 hours
Makes 20 to 24 ounces
Nutritional Info
Ingredients
- 10 pounds
tomatoes (See Recipe Note)
- 2 tablespoons
olive oil
- 2 teaspoons
sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon
citric acid, or 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
Equipment
Chef's knife
Cutting board
Large pot
Food mill, sieve, or chinois
- 2
rimmed baking sheets or 1 roasting pan
4-ounce jars, for storing
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Arrange 2 racks to divide the oven into thirds and heat to 350°F.
Chop tomatoes into quarters. Quarter the tomatoes.
Simmer the tomatoes with the olive oil. Place the olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the tomatoes and cook until soft and the peels begin to detach from the tomato flesh.
Pass the tomatoes through a food mill. Push the warm tomatoes through a food mill, sieve, or chinois to separate the tomato pulp from the seeds and skins. Stir the sea salt and citric acid or lemon juice into the pulp. Discard or compost the seeds and skins.
Place the pulp on 2 baking sheets. Divide the tomato pulp between 2 large, rimmed baking sheets. You can also use a large roasting pan, but it will take longer to cook down that way.
Bake the tomato pulp until reduced to a paste. Place the baking sheets in the oven. Check the tomatoes every half hour, stirring the paste and switching the position of the baking sheets so that they reduce evenly. Over time, the paste will start to reduce to the point where it doesn’t fill the baking sheet any more. At this point, combine the contents of the two baking sheets into one and continue to bake.
Bake until reduced by more than half. The paste is done when shiny, brick-colored, and reduced by more than half, 3 to 4 hours, though exact baking times will depend on the juiciness of your tomatoes. There shouldn’t be any remaining water or moisture separating from the paste at this point.
Transfer the paste into jars. Divide the finished paste into 4-ounce jars, leaving 3/4-inch headspace.
Preserving Option 1 — Process the tomato paste in a hot water bath. Apply lids and rings and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Keep in a cool, dark place for up to 1 year. After opening, refrigerate for up to 1 week.
Preserving Option 2 - Refrigerate or freeze. If you don’t want to process the paste, you can refrigerate or freeze it instead. Scrape finished paste into clean half or quarter pint jars. Top each jar with a layer of olive oil and place in either the refrigerator or the freezer. As long as you keep it well-covered with olive oil and ensure that you only use a very clean spoon to remove it from the jar, it will keep in the fridge for 3 to 4 weeks. Frozen, it will keep for up to 9 months.
Recipe Notes
Tomato options: Use paste tomatoes, like Romas and San Marzanos, for the greatest yield. Juicy heirloom tomatoes can also be used, but will have a smaller yield.