Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Taco Sauce

Here's a pretty easy recipe to try your hand at, although you do have to have a few ingredients on hand, most notably tomato paste. 

I'm one of those people who actually do keep a good amount of tomato paste around the house.  Why?  Because you can use it to make tomato sauce and a lot of other tomato based products with and it takes up a lot less room.  Something to consider the next time you want to build up your pantry :).

Taco Sauce 
(adapted from freshpreserving.com/Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving with abridged instructions)

Ingredients:
  • 5 cups water
  • 3 cups tomato paste (about 2 12-oz cans...I ended up using 5 6-oz cans to get three cups)
  • 1 cup cider vinegar
  • 1/2 cup corn syrup
  • 2 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 Tbsp salt
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce (I used sriracha sauce)
Procedure:

1.  Prepare canner, jars and lids in a safe and approved manner.

2.  Combine water, tomato paste, vinegar, corn syrup, chili powder, salt, cayenne pepper and hot pepper sauce in a large non-reactive saucepan (I use my 8 quart stock pot for these types of things). Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and boil gently while stirring frequently, until mixture is thickened to the consistency of a thin commercial barbecue sauce, about 30 minutes (mine came together in about 20 minutes.  I might have gone a bit thin on mine since I got a much higher yield than the recipe said it made, but I stopped at what I considered to be a thin BBQ sauce consistency and what I was happy with for a taco sauce consistency).

3.  Ladle hot sauce into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar. Apply band until fit is fingertip tight.

4.  Process in a hot water bath canner for 30 minutes (since I made pints as well as 1/2 pints, I went for 35 minutes just to be safe).  Remove lid on canner and let sit five more minutes.  Remove jars to a tea towel and let sit for 24 hours.  Check seal (it should not flex up and down when pressed).  Store.

This supposedly makes 6 8-ounce jars, which would have been three pints.  I got 5 pints out of the recipe.  Not unhappy with the results, but I wanted to give people a head's up anyway :).

14 comments:

  1. So, would this be in place of taco seasoning packets? Or as a topping?

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    1. It's enchilada sauce, just by another name (or so that is how it tastes to me). You can certainly use it as a taco topping, though, like they do at Taco Bell and things too :).

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  2. I was just at another blog and the person was talking about chickweed healing salve got rid of eczema and hives and rashes, so I went to amazon and most of the brands people are saying the same. And it's all nautral! Might help your son! I'm going to see if I can get mine some locally, if not, plan to give it a go. We use a steroid cream a few times a month, but like you, I don't like having to.

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    1. I've tried pretty much every all natural thing out there including making my own eczema creams after studying herbology books and things. I tried chickweed salve, yarrow, calendula, St. John's Wort...you name it. It seemed to help for a little bit and then the eczema would just come back. I certainly hope you can find some local and that it can help your kiddo! Eczema is a terrible thing to have to battle.

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  3. Erika, how spicy is the sauce? It sounds very interesting and I might try making it. I like a little bit of spice, but lean towards a "mild" heat. My husband like "extra hot", but I'd like to make it so that we can all enjoy the sauce.

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    1. It's a medium heat level out of pan, but it mellows out (to me) to be a mild heat (mind you I hate saying that as I know everyone's heat pallet is different and my Cheyenne pepper is older than it should be :). You could easily split the recipe in half once you have it all mixed up and add more hot sauce or Cheyenne to the other pan to give it some more kick. It wouldn't effect the safety to can it any as there wouldn't be enough spice to significantly alter the recipe to add like 1/2 a teaspoon of Cheyenne or hot sauce to one of the pans. Just don't mess up which is which *laugh*.

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  4. I have a question regarding making tomato sauce from tomato paste. How do I go about it? My dh is allergic to citric acid which is in every can tomato product around. For awhile these was one brand that didn't have it in but they changed the recipe so now I can only use Ragu (and only certain ones) when I want a tomato base recipe. When making stuffed cabbage or peppers I really don't want the Italian flavor so tomato paste might be the way to go. Thanks, Cheryl

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    1. cheryl u just add water to the paste to make the sauce. just google "how to turn tomato paste into sauce" or something like that n u should b able to find the info. good luck!

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    2. It's pretty easy to make tomato sauce from tomato paste. Take your can of tomato paste and empty it into a saucepan and then take the same can (ala the Campbell's Soup Method) and add two cans of water to the pan. Mix well with a whisk and heat it up (I usually end up adding a bit of water to the mix already in the pan to be safe. If you have wine or something you'd like to add, add a canfull of that too and a pinch of sugar if the tomato paste sauce tastes a bit acidy.

      One company you should check out is Eden Organics. I used to buy them through Amazon when my daughter was allergic to corn and my son was allergic to garlic as they had pride in super simple ingredients and no additives and such. They aren't the cheapest option, but they were really good when I was buying them (I'd e-mail them just to be safe :).

      Here's their tomato products. If you are in the Lower 48 and buy so much you can get free shipping even!

      http://www.edenfoods.com/store/tomatoes-sauerkraut/organic-tomato-products.html

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    3. Ooops. It's a 9.00 flat rate shipping on 65.00 order or over. My bad.

      I also found these which might work for you too if you want really authentic Italian types of dishes :).

      http://www.amazon.com/Mutti-Finely-Chopped-Tomatoes-Polpa/dp/B00CSSU016/ref=sr_1_23_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1464240555&sr=8-23&keywords=diced+tomatoes

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    4. Thank you. I will look on Amazon. With the recipes changing all the time, I look at everything I shop for with certain items. I am sure with your son's peanut allergy, it is the same but mine only gets hives no need for eip pen. Cheryl.

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    5. I finally remembered the name of my favorite brand of tomato products when it came to having nothing added to them *laugh*. Pomi tomato products (you might be able to find them at your local stores...my Safeway affiliate and Fred Meyer both carry them). They come in a box vs. a can and they even have tomato sauce now that you can get on Amazon. They have one ingredient. Tomatoes. That's it :).

      I know exactly how you feel about changing recipes and obsessively reading labels. I used to buy Annie's organic ketchup because it didn't have garlic in it (the ONLY ketchup on the market I could find that didn't) and they made it with apple cider vinegar vs distilled white so my daughter could have it with her corn allergy. Now I saw when I was on Amazon looking around that they make it with distilled white vinegar now. It's nice having the convenience to be able to buy items at the store, yet so scary that you are dependent on them to not change things in a market where companies are constantly encouraged to "reinvent" their products to keep their market share up.

      At least with the peanut allergy, the nut allergies are so much more serious than they used to be that companies are getting REALLY careful about declaring peanuts on their packaging. That at least is a good thing.

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    6. I do use those, I was hoping for just plain tomato sauce. I usually buy the chopped pomi for a pasta dish my husband saw on tv and wanted me to try. Thanks for looking, while shopping today all the tomato paste had citric acid so I may be limited to the pomi. We will live, hardly a big problem in life. Cheryl

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  5. Thank you for the recipe. I can't wait to try it!-Kathryn

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