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Homemade tomato sauce often comes out thin and watery. Use these simple tips to ensure your homemade tomato sauce is thick, delicious, and not watery.
I love canning my tomatoes and making pasta sauce with vegetables straight out of the garden. But most of the time, homemade tomato sauce ends up thin and watery–which doesn’t taste good at all. It doesn’t have a rich flavor, and doesn’t stick to pasta the way it should.
Now, some folks will tell you to use flour, cornstarch, roux, arrowroot powder, or other thickening agents in your tomato sauce.
While those are ingredients you can use to thicken a finished product, you cannot use any thickeners when canning tomato sauce. These products change the acidity level of the sauce and prevent the sauce from being safely canned.
I don’t want to take any chances when I’m canning! So I wanted to find a way to thicken homemade tomato sauce without any additives.
It’s All About the Pectin
You’ve probably heard of pectin: it’s a soluble fiber found in most plants. It’s a thickener that occurs naturally in the peel and pulp of fruits and veggies. It gives sauces and jellies an even, thick consistency as they cook.
The trouble with fresh tomatoes is that they contain an enzyme that breaks down pectin. So as you’re preparing your sauce, those little enzymes are eating up all that magical pectin… ultimately leading to a watery sauce.
Fortunately, there’s a quick and easy fix for this that will give you thick, hearty homemade tomato sauce.
Boil Before Simmering
We all know sauces are supposed to simmer not boil, right? As a rule of thumb, this is absolutely correct. Generally speaking, simmering is the perfect method for cooking and reducing sauces of all kinds.
But to avoid watery tomato sauce, we’re going to bend this rule just a bit. We need to quickly deactivate the enzyme that breaks down pectin. For that, we need to boil the sauce!
Luckily, we don’t need to boil it long in order to get the job done. Here’s how it works:
- Quickly bring your tomato sauce to a hard boil.
- Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid scorching the sauce.
- Reduce to low heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 90 minutes.
Just 5 minutes of boiling is enough to neutralize that pesky enzyme and allow the pectin to do its work.
More Tips for Perfect Homemade Tomato Sauce
1. Run your tomatoes through a food mill or KitchenAid grinder to remove skins and seeds.
Roughly chop your tomatoes and run them through a food mill or KitchenAid grinder/strainer (which is my favorite) to separate the pulp from the skin and seeds. This makes for a perfectly smooth, flavorful sauce.
It’s also much faster than traditional blanching, which is often recommended to peel tomatoes but doesn’t remove the seeds.
2. Don’t skimp on the simmering.
By simmering the tomato sauce, you’re taking advantage of the reducing method. Reducing both thickens your sauce and intensifies the flavors.
It’s the key to making gourmet-level sauces with mouthwatering results.
3. Choose a meaty tomato variety.
Roma, Amish Paste, and San Marzano tomatoes contain less juice and fewer seeds. These are some of the best tomatoes to use for homemade tomato sauce.
However, if you grow different varieties in your garden or found a spectacular deal on tomatoes at your local farmers market, don’t despair too much. You’ll eliminate most of the issues by using a food mill or kitchen grinder to process your tomatoes and by simmering for a nice long time to reduce your sauce.
If your tomatoes are particularly juicy, they might benefit from simmering an extra 30-60 minutes to evaporate even more of that water.
What are you going to make with your rich, thick tomato sauce?
Hi Pam! I like making tomato sauce from fresh or store bought tomatoes. If I’m pressed for time (or just lazy)I’ll use a can of store bought tomato sauce and “fix” if by adding more tomatoes (fresh/canned) and my seasonings. If i use meat, it’s always cooked first, then drained and added to my sauce. I let my sauce simmer for an hour or so (2hours sometimes) BUT it always turns runny. Is it because I didn’t boil first? (boil the tomatoes before adding spices? Does it matter?) or didn’t let it reduce enough?
When I make sauce (I’m a single bachelor) and tend to cook for several meals. The extra is frozen in “tupperware” contianers… Thawed over night in the fridge, then heated to add to pasta. When I use it this way, the sauce seems even more runny (before storing in freezer, always at room temperature first).
What/where do i go wrong?
I love this recipe I came across for sauce – preferably with Romas, but I’ve honestly just used whatever I have. Fill a generously greased (olive oil) cookies sheet with tomato halves. I like to also add a few onion wedges, garlic cloves and cracked black prior, drizzled with more olive oil. Throw in the oven around 400 till it smells good and the tomatoes start to brown (I never time it – maybe half an hr?). After cooling a bit, put in pan or Pyrex measuring cup and blend with stick blender (or cool completely and throw in blender). And freeze in 2c containers. Easy and tasty! Makes a great tomato soup too (heat up with equal parts milk).
That would be cracked black pepper
how much pectin to add to how much sauce?
hi Pam,
thank you for this! What a recipe to land on for my first tomato sauce venture. I see others tomato sauce recipes have other things added, sugar, herbs etc. Do you add these things at all or are the tomatoes alone enough for the flavour? Or do you perhaps make the sauce, freeze it and add other things when you go to use the sauce? Thank you for any light you can shed, I am quite new to cooking. Many thanks, Tash
Hi Pam,
Thanks for the great post. I have been wondering why my tomato sauce ended up like watery juice instead of sauce. I will use your advice next year.
Thanks! Jewels