I am going to start canning my world-famous marinara sauce for use at home so hopefully Mrs Cad stops buying that crap from the store. I will be using a pressure cooker and have a run time of 45 minutes so we don’t all die of botulism. Considering the long time in the heat, should I actually undercook my sauce for canning? If so, as extreme as bring the pot o’ sauce up to temp and then immediately can it?
I don’t know from canning but I love a good marinara. It’s pretty hard to overcook a basic marinara sauce except by burning the bottom of the pot. I can’t imagine a water bath will hurt it much.
Since this is your first attempt canning a recipe you’re already super familiar with, why not do both in a small batch? Do half the batch undercooked and half the batch at normal, then see if there’s a difference.
Are you asking about cooking for less time than necessary for safe canning? Or not cooking it longer than the minimum necessary time for safety? I assume you’ll be cooking it again later when you serve it, do you think with minimal cooking time for safe canning it will need further cooking when it’s time to serve?
Is you sauce chunky? Is it a matter of texture?
I’m assuming you have canned before and have all the equipment. Tomato sauce can also be boiled for a short time and then frozen. Freezing and thawing will have more effect on texture than storage after canning I think.
He’s going to (if I’m parsing correctly) run the cans through a pressure cooker, which will expose the sauce to higher temperatures than while it’s simmering. He’s asking if he should slightly undercook the sauce since it will presumably continue cooking in the water bath.
If that’s what he’s asking then I would cook initially in a pot for minimal time and then let it finish in the water bath the way commercial products are canned. I’m not sure why there would be any reason for further cooking in the pot.
This. Good marinara sauce always gets better with longer cooking. Cook your sauce per usual. Can it for safety. Then cook it again when preparing to eat.
I cook my sauce the usual amount of time (about eight hours) when canning.
I too know bupkiss about canning. But generally agree w @Pleonast.
It’d be nice for the OP @Saint_Cad to come back and clarify what problem(s) he thinks he will encounter when in the lifetime of the sauce, and why / how changing his first-step cooking time solves the problem he thinks he’ll have.
Some folks make very fresh sauces where the tomatoes are still more raw than cooked. Imagine a non-spicy Mexican-style “salsa” and you get the general idea; sort of tomato relish for pasta. Of course one can argue whether that should be called “marinara” or something else but that’s a bicker for another thread.
If that’s close to his MO for his magic sauce, I could see being concerned that 3x the cooking is gonna be 2.5x too much.
I didn’t necessarily anticipate a problem. I just wanted to make sure that there was no “because you are canning tomatoes they will go bitter so add sugar.” or something otherwise unanticipated.
Speaking of not being able (IMHO of course) of overcooking a good tomato sauce, I’m at the tail end of fresh tomato season from my MiL’s garden, with my 2nd? 3rd? 5qt batch in the slow cooker now. Just throw in the stemmed tomatoes, the herbs and come back with a stick blender in 24 hours.
While I have canned in the past, it’s just too much work and worry for me, so each batch is going into the dedicated stand alone freezer once done, and of course, will be brought up and heated to a safe temp during later use.
But back to overcooking - heck on one occasion, we’ve let it go 48 hours in the slow cooker and other than becoming even more concentrated, it hadn’t burned. But it was approaching something resembling tomato paste by that point. Was still amazing.
Tomorrow is go time.
Canned.
Do you measure proportions, or just go by taste when adding all the spices?
One of the advantages of marrying a nice Italian girl is that you get access to the family recipes. The disadvantage is that if you deviate one iota her great-grandmother will haunt your ass.
I tempted fate by adding red pepper flakes to this batch.