Canning spaghetti sauce turns an otherwise boring pasta night into a homemade feast! When you can your own, you’re able to add your own seasonings and customize it to your families taste, making it truly special.
Canning spaghetti sauce without meat is a delicious and useful way to make the most of a veggie-based diet. It’s great for stocking your pantry for ready-made meals that come together in a cinch!
Whether you’re using canned tomatoes from the store or fresh ingredients you grew yourself, there are plenty of ways to whip up a hearty dinner without resorting to meat.
Plus, this spaghetti sauce can be just as tasty, if not more so, than classic spaghetti sauce recipes that contain ground beef or other meats.
After preparing it and opening a jar later on, you can use this sauce as a base for other recipes (including those with meat), or serve it all by itself for a super flavorful meal.
Ingredients for Spaghetti Sauce Without Meat
This is a tested recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation. It includes a number of low acid ingredients, namely onions, mushrooms and peppers, so it must be pressure canned.
Tomatoes seem acidic, but they’re also right on the borderline when it comes to acidity for canning. Since this recipe doesn’t include any added acidity (lemon juice, vinegar, wine, etc) it comes out less abrasive than many pasta sauce canning recipes, but it also means it’s not acidic enough for water bath canning.
If you’re not familiar with pressure canning, I’d suggest you read my beginner’s guide to pressure canning before you get started. If you’re looking for a beginner friendly pressure canner, there’s nothing so easy to use as the Presto Electric Pressure Canner. (You can read my instructions on how to use an electric pressure canner, as well as my full presto electric pressure canner review. Be aware that you cannot use an instant pot for pressure canning, it doesn’t work the same way.)
The ingredients for canning spaghetti sauce without meat are quite simple. To make a canner batch of 9 pints, you’ll need the following:
- 30 lbs tomatoes
- 1 cup chopped onions (optional)
- 1 cup chopped green/red pepper, or celery (optional)
- 1 lb fresh, sliced mushrooms (optional)
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp oregano
- 4 tbsp parsley
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 4 ½ tsp salt
- ¼ cup olive oil (or vegetable oil)
- ¼ cup brown sugar (optional)
While you can omit the mushrooms, peppers, or onions from this recipe, if you choose, it is important that you do not increase the quantities of any of these. This will result in a recipe that is unsafe for canning. Do not, under any circumstances, add meat to this recipe as the canning time is not sufficient for a meat based spaghetti sauce.
You may use any kind of tomatoes you like for this sauce, but paste tomatoes (such as Romans or San Marzanos) tend to work the best and don’t usually require additional thickening after the canning process.
This recipe is safe for either pints or quarts, but if you choose to can quarts, you may have a bit of sauce leftover (it produces about four and a half quarts).
Canning Spaghetti Sauce Without Meat
Begin by washing the tomatoes. Dip them in boiling water for 30-40 seconds, or until the skins split and pucker. Then, dip in cold water or a bucket of ice and remove the skins.
I have a specific guide to peeling tomatoes for canning, if you’re looking for more details on the process.
Peeled Tomatoes
Core and quarter the tomatoes. Then, boil them for 20 minutes in a large, uncovered saucepan.
Run The tomatoes through a sieve or food mill. I often use the food mill attachment on my kitchenaid mixer, but I’ve also used a small hand crank food mill, a manual countertop food mill and a chinois sieve. They all work just as well.
The main thing here is you’re removing the seeds and creating a smooth tomato sauce. If you don’t want the sauce to be smooth, and you want a few chunks, you can simply squeeze out the seeds by hand and then dice up the tomatoes. Don’t do that with more than half your tomatoes, as you do want a bit of sauce in with your chunks or it’ll end up too thick.
If you don’t have any food mill type things at home, you can seed the tomatoes and then put them into a food processor or blender, or chop them with an immersion blender…or for all manual you can just dice them as finely as you can with a sharp knife.
Making Tomato Sauce with a Food Mill
Saute the onions, celery, peppers, mushrooms, and garlic in oil until they are tender. Combine the vegetables with the tomatoes, then add the rest of the ingredients. Bring everything to a boil, then simmer uncovered until the sauce is thick enough for serving.
At this time, you may find that the initial volume of the sauce has been reduced – and that’s fine. It should be reduced to about 50% of its initial volume. Stir often while you’re cooking the sauce to prevent it from burning and sticking to the bottom of the pan.
While the sauce is cooking, prepare a pressure canner along with jars and lids. Follow the instructions from your canner manufacturer, but for most canners, that means adding 2-3 inches of water to the bottom of the canner, along with the bottom trivet and bringing it up to a simmer (180 F) for this hot pack recipe.
Once your sauce is ready, fill hot, sterilized jars. Leave 1” of headspace. Wipe the rims of the jars to remove food particles. Add the lids and bands to the jars, then tighten until they are fingertip tips.
Load the jars into the canner.
Turn heat to high, then allow the canner to vent steam for 10 minutes. Add the weight, then process the jars at 11 lbs pressure for a dial gauge canner or 10 lbs pressure for a weighted gauge scanner if below 1,000 feet in elevation. You will process pints for 20 minutes and quarts for 25 minutes. Adjust for altitude as needed (see below).
When the processing time has finished, allow the canner to depressurize on its own. Remove the jars, then allow them to cool for 12 hours. Check the seals before storing.
Altitude Adjustments for Canning Spaghetti Sauce
With pressure canning, the processing times stay the same at higher altitude, but the pressures change. Here are the altitude adjustments for pressure canning spaghetti sauce:
For dial gauge pressure canners:
- 0 to 2,000 feet in elevation – 11 lbs pressure
- 2,001 to 4,000 feet in elevation – 12 lbs pressure
- 4,001 to 6,000 feet in elevation – 13 lbs pressure
- 6,001 to 8,000 feet in elevation – 14 lbs pressure
Those same numbers are summarized in the chart below:
For weighted gauge pressure canners:
- 0 to 1,000 feet in elevation – 10 lbs pressure
- Above 1,000 feet – 15 lbs pressure
Again, those same numbers are summarized in the chart below:
If you have the presto electric pressure canner, it does the altitude adjustments for you and you just set it and let it do it’s thing.
Serving Spaghetti Sauce Without Meat
This spaghetti sauce is incredibly easy to serve out of the jar – simply heat it up, and you’re good to go.
You can add meat (typically, about half a pound of ground beef or sausage works well per pint, but you can adjust based on your personal preferences) or additional vegetables. If you found that your sauce was a bit on the thin side when you canned it, you may also add thickeners at this point (such as flour or cornstarch).
When it’s time to serve up your sauce, think about pairing it with some whole wheat pasta for a healthier choice – or even some fresh vegetables for an extra punch of flavor.
Canning Spaghetti Sauce (Basic Recipe without Meat)
Home canned spaghetti sauce can be a lifesaver on a busy weeknight. This basic canning recipe for spaghetti sauce is popular with the whole family.
Ingredients
- 30 lbs tomatoes
- 1 cup chopped onions
- 1 cup chopped red/green pepper or celery
- 1 lb fresh, sliced mushrooms
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp oregano
- 4 tbsp parsley
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 4 ½ tsp salt
- ¼ cup olive oil (or vegetable oil)
- ¼ cup brown sugar
Instructions
- Wash the tomatoes. Dip them in boiling water for 30-40 seconds, or until the skins split and pucker. Then, dip in cold water or a bucket of ice and remove the skins.
- Core and quarter the tomatoes. Then, boil them for 20 minutes in a large, uncovered saucepan. Run the tomatoes through a sieve or food mill.
- Saute the onions, celery, peppers, mushrooms, and garlic in olive oil (or vegetable oil) until they are tender.
- Combine the vegetables with the tomatoes, then add the rest of the ingredients. Bring everything to a boil, then simmer uncovered until the sauce is thick enough for serving. Stir often to prevent burning. The sauce should reduce by about half.
- While the sauce cooks, prepare a pressure canner for hot pack, along with jars, lids and rings.
- Once your sauce is ready, fill hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1'' headspace.
- Wipe the rims of the jars to remove food particles. Add the lids and bands to the jars, then tighten until they are fingertip tips.
- Load the jars into the canner.
- Turn heat to high, then allow the canner to vent steam for 10 minutes.
- Add the weight, then process the jars at 11 lbs pressure for a dial gauge canner or 10 lbs pressure for a weighted gauge scanner. You will process pints for 20 minutes and quarts for 25 minutes. Adjust for altitude as needed.
- When the processing time has finished, allow the canner to depressurize on its own.
- Remove the jars, then allow them to cool for 12 hours. Check the seals before storing.
Notes
This is a pressure canning recipe, and it's not safe for water bath canning due to multiple low acid ingredients (mushrooms, onions, etc).
In this recipe, the onions, peppers, mushrooms and sugar are optional. You can omit them if your family doesn't like any particular ingredient, but you cannot substitute another ingredient in its place.
For spices, you can substitute any dry spice (or add other dry spices) to suit your tastes. Do not add fresh spices (ie. fresh basil).
The canning times for this spaghetti sauce recipe are always the same, but the pressure changes with altitude.
Here are the altitude adjustments for canning spaghetti sauce:
For dial gauge pressure canners:
- 0 to 2,000 feet in elevation – 11 lbs pressure
- 2,001 to 4,000 feet in elevation – 12 lbs pressure
- 4,001 to 6,000 feet in elevation – 13 lbs pressure
- 6,001 to 8,000 feet in elevation – 14 lbs pressure
For weighted gauge pressure canners:
- 0 to 1,000 feet in elevation – 10 lbs pressure
- Above 1,000 feet – 15 lbs pressure
Pressure Canning Recipes
Fill your pressure canner again with these simple pressure canning recipes:
Meal in a Jar Canning Recipes
Spaghetti sauce is basically a meal in a jar, all you have to do is add cooked pasta. If you’re looking for something that’s more heat and eat, try these meal-in-a-jar canning recipes instead:
Alissa
Can’t wait to try. Could.i cut the tomatoes, juice.them to remove seeds and skin and then cook them down? I’ve seen recipes like that.. I have a juicer.
Also about how many quart jars will this make? Thanks!
Ashley Adamant
If the juicer is only removing the seeds and skins, then it may work. My juicer also removes the pulp though, which is most of the bulk of the tomato. What your really want here is a food mill or chinois sieve.
Katie
Can I reduce the amount of salt for this recipe, or will that affect its shelf life?
Ashley Adamant
Yes, you can reduce the salt in the recipe; that’s for flavor rather than preservation. Enjoy!
Lauren
If I dice part of the tomatoes instead of milling them all, do I still need to remove the skins? When I’m making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes I usually just dice them and cook them. Not sure if something about the canning would make that… undesirable? Thanks! I just discovered your website and I’m looking forward to trying some of these!
Ashley Adamant
From a safety perspective, you don’t have to peel the tomatoes or mill them. It’s perfectly fine to use diced tomatoes (or part diced tomatoes).
Some people find that some varieties of tomatoes get bitter when you can the peels, and/or the peels are really tough when canned. That really hasn’t been my experience with most the types of tomatoes I’ve canned, but I’ve heard it from many people, so it just depends. It’s a personal preference thing, and you can do just as you say and dice the tomatoes instead. Enjoy!
Shaun
I use a blender to puree the tomatoes then I use a mesh strainer. I pour in batches and use a spatula to mush the pulp through leaving seeds and any skin that didn’t fully come off tomatoes. Only sauce my kids will eat is home made. Crazy
Kristi Lee Johnson
Do you not use vinegar or lemon juice to prevent botulism?
Ashley Adamant
Not in this recipe. Most sauce recipes and tomato recipes in general do add lemon juice or vinegar, but this is a tested pressure canning recipe from the National Center for food preservation that was specifically developed with that in mind so you don’t have to put added acidity into the sauce. They also have water bath canning recipes, and those you do need to add acidity. Some of their pressure canning recipes even include the added lemon juice…but not this one in particular. This is their basic recipe for canning spaghetti sauce without meat and the way it was developed it does not include bonus acidity, which is nice, it doesn’t come out too sour.
Kelly
Can you use both green pepper and celery in this recipe, or just one or the other? (ie 1 cup bell pepper and 1 cup chopped celery)
Ashley Adamant
You can use a mix, but the total amount can’t be more than 1 cup. So it’d be 1/2 cup green bell pepper and 1/2 cup celery.
Kelly
Can both celery and bell pepper be used in this recipe? Or just one or the other?
Ashley Adamant
You can use both, but the total amount cannot be more than 1 cup combined.
Lori
Can I use canned tomatoes? If so how much?
Ashley Adamant
Yes, you can use canned tomatoes. In general, one 14.5 ounce can of tomatoes equals 1 pound fresh. Since this recipe uses 30 pounds of tomatoes, that’s a lot of canned tomatoes, and you might be better off working with bigger cans. In total, you’d need 435 ounces of canned tomatoes. A number 10 can is about 105 ounces, so you’d need about 4 no. 10 can of canned tomatoes to make this whole recipe.
Joe
Can this be safely made without the oil?
Ashley Adamant
Yes, you can omit the oil without changing the canning safety.
Ashley Adamant
Yes, the oil is optional and isn’t needed for canning safety.
Patti N
I made this sauce today. It took a lot longer than I had anticipated to cook down to the consistency that I wanted. I used Beef Steak, Celebrity and Early Girl tomatoes, so they may have produced more liquid than a meatier tomato would have. I also had a problem getting the seeds out and the next time I make this I’ll remove the seeds when I core my tomatoes. Even though it was a bit difficult for me to make, it is well worth it. This sauce tastes AMAZING!!! I’ll never want store bought sauce again. Thanks so much for this recipe!
Ashley Adamant
Those heirlooms can be a bit seedier than other varieties, and they have a lot more water, so yes, it’ll take a good bit longer to cook down when using those instead of meatier types. Glad you enjoyed it!
Trish
Is the Oregano and Parsley in this recipe fresh or died?
Ashley Adamant
I always use dried when I make it, but the NCHFP does not specify one way or the other.
Lisa
I can’t wait to try this. I am curious why fresh herbs are not recommended. I always use fresh herbs including basil in my sauce when I can it and freeze it. Do they impact the pressure canning process?
Thank you, so much!
Ashley Adamant
In general, canning recipes have you use dried herbs, but in this particular recipe it won’t make much difference one way or another. This one comes from the National Center for Home Food Preservation doesn’t actually specify either fresh or dried.
TJR
Can I omit the sugar or use less or will that make it less shelf stable
Ashley Adamant
Yes, you can omit the sugar. It’s optional, and for flavor rather than preservation.
Pia
Hi Ashley,
In reading a lot of canned spaghetti sauce recipes, i just couldn’t see that making my own and canning it would make a difference. I didn’t use canned tomatoes or fresh, i used store bought plain canned tomato sauce, browned my meat with some onions and garlic and some italian herb blend added the sauce brought to a boil and cooked to a nice thick sauce. I pressure canned pints for 75 minutes. I still can’t see that i might be in danger. Am i? lol Reading all the instructions don’t add more onions etc etc, does it really have to be so precise?
Thanks in advance!
Pia
Ashley Adamant
All of the tested pasta sauce recipes are pretty precise, mostly because they’re water bath canned or pressure canned for minimal time (as with this recipe). The University of Alaska has instructions for canning hearty soups that allows you to create your own recipe and process it for 75 minutes for pints and 90 minutes for quarts (publication FNH 00065). If you use those processing times in a pressure canner then you can make your own recipe (with or without meat). It sounds like that’s what you have =)
Bethany
The 30 pound of tomatoes, is that before you skin, core and seed them or after? Thanks!
Ashley Adamant
That’s 30 pounds as harvested (or purchased). It’s before processing.