Canning Spaghetti Sauce (Basic Recipe without Meat) (2024)

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 circ*mstances, 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.

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.

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.

Yield: Makes 9 Pints (or 4 to 5 quarts)

Canning Spaghetti Sauce (Basic Recipe without Meat)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Additional Time: 25 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes

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

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Saute the onions, celery, peppers, mushrooms, and garlic in olive oil (or vegetable oil) until they are tender.
4. 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.
5. While the sauce cooks, prepare a pressure canner for hot pack, along with jars, lids and rings.
6. Once your sauce is ready, fill hot, sterilized jars, leaving 1'' headspace.
7. 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.
8. Load the jars into the canner.
9. Turn heat to high, then allow the canner to vent steam for 10 minutes.
10. 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.
11. When the processing time has finished, allow the canner to depressurize on its own.
12. 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:

• Canning Beef
• Canning Potatoes
• Canning Pumpkin
• Canning Sweet Potatoes
• Canning Corn

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:

• Boston Baked Beans
• Thai Curry Duck
• White Bean Chicken Chili
• Cajun Red Beans and Sausage