Sauce · Water-bath canned
Tomato Taco Sauce (NCHFP Tested Recipe)
Eight quarts of chopped paste tomato with jalapeño, green chile, onion and 2½ cups of vinegar, simmered thick and processed 15 minutes. The tested taco sauce.
Tested process
This is the National Center for Home Food Preservation's "Tomato Taco Sauce", a tested recipe. Hot pack, pint jars, 1/2-inch headspace, boiling-water bath: 15 minutes at 0–1,000 ft, 20 minutes at 1,001–6,000 ft, 25 minutes above 6,000 ft. NCHFP's only listed safe changes are substituting bottled lemon juice for the vinegar and adjusting the spices and herbs. Do not alter the proportions of vegetables, vinegar and tomato.
If you started today, in Zone 6, in pots
9 plants. 17 jars. Sauce on Jul 31.
Worked from Zone 6's average last frost (Apr 21) and each cultivar's days to maturity. Your zone and your space change every date below. The builder does that for you.
- Jan 6Order seeds and starting supplies
- Jan 27Sow indoors under lights
- Apr 21Average last frost (Zone 6)
- Jun 12First Hardneck Garlic harvest
- Jul 12First Roma Tomato harvest
- Jul 12First Spanish Onion harvest
- Jul 12First Jalapeño harvest
- Jul 17First Marconi Red Pepper harvest
- Jul 31Sauce day: Canned Taco Sauce
- Jul 31Process in a boiling-water bath
Save it
The whole season, one pin
| Yield | About 16–18 pints, 17 pint jars |
|---|---|
| Active time | 90 minutes |
| Total time | 90 minutes prep, about 1 hour simmering, 15 minutes processing |
| Heat | Mild to medium. Four jalapeños (2,500–8,000 SHU) across about 8 quarts of tomato. |
| Target finished pH | Below 4.6 (fixed by the tested vinegar ratio) |
| Preservation | Water-bath canned |
| Fruit this batch eats | 20.5 lb Roma Tomato1.75 lb Spanish Onion0.25 lb Jalapeño0.5 lb Marconi Red Pepper0.02 lb Hardneck Garlic |
What you have to grow
Roma TomatoRoma VF (determinate paste)75 days from transplant
Spanish OnionYellow Sweet Spanish (long-day)110 days from transplant
JalapeñoEarly Jalapeño (Capsicum annuum)75 days from transplant
Marconi Red PepperMarconi Red (Capsicum annuum)80 days from transplant
Hardneck GarlicSiberian (porcelain hardneck)240 days from sowTaco night out of a jar, with a tomato you grew. This is the National Center for Home Food Preservation taco sauce: 8 quarts of paste tomato cooked down with onion, jalapeño, long green chile, vinegar, oregano and cumin until it mounds on a spoon. It is vinegar-forward and cooked down thick, with an edge that holds up on a hot tortilla.
We checked the amounts, method, headspace and process times against the live NCHFP page on 2026-11-09.
What you need
From NCHFP, exactly as tested.
| Ingredient | Tested amount |
|---|---|
| Paste tomatoes (Roma), peeled, cored, finely chopped | 8 quarts |
| Onions, chopped | 5 cups |
| Jalapeño peppers, seeded, chopped | 4 |
| Long green chiles (Marconi picked green), seeded, chopped | 4 |
| Garlic, crushed | 2 cloves |
| Vinegar, 5% acidity | 2½ cups |
| Salt | 2 tbsp |
| Black pepper | 1½ tbsp |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp |
| Oregano leaves (optional) | 2 tbsp |
| Ground cumin (optional) | 1 tsp |
Yield is about 16 to 18 pints.
Method
- Prep the peppers. Gloves on. Jalapeños need no peeling. For the long green chiles, blister them in a 400 °F oven for 6–8 minutes (or on a wire mesh over a hot burner), cool them under a damp cloth, slip off the skins and discard the seeds. Chop both.
- Peel the tomatoes. Dip them in boiling water for 30–60 seconds until the skins split, then in cold water. Slip off the skins, core and finely chop. Measure 8 quarts.
- Combine everything in a large pot and heat, stirring frequently, until boiling.
- Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until thick, about 1 hour.
- Fill hot pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles, wipe the rims and fit the lids.
- Process in a boiling-water bath:
| Altitude | Pints |
|---|---|
| 0–1,000 ft | 15 min |
| 1,001–6,000 ft | 20 min |
| Above 6,000 ft | 25 min |
Start timing when the water returns to a full rolling boil over the jars. Let the jars sit in the water 5 minutes after you turn off the heat, then lift them out and leave them undisturbed for 12–24 hours.
What you can change, and what you can’t
- Spices and herbs: anything. Oregano, cumin and black pepper are yours to change or drop.
- The acid: vinegar, or bottled lemon juice at the same amount. Never less, never fresh juice.
- Pepper type: swap, same volume. Trade a long green chile for a serrano and the sauce gets hotter with the same acid math.
- Tomato, onion and pepper: never more. All three are low-acid.
- No corn, no beans, no oil. They are not in the tested recipe.
See canning acid math for why 4.6 is the line.
Grow it
Eight quarts of chopped paste tomato is about 20 lb of fruit, which two to three determinate Roma plants ripen in one three-week window. Marconi fills the long-green-chile slot, the jalapeño supplies the heat, and Spanish onion and hardneck garlic round out the base. The same beds feed canned Roma salsa and canned chile hot sauce.
Storage
Store sealed jars in a cool, dark cupboard and use them within a year for best quality. Once opened, refrigerate. Any jar whose lid flexes, or that spurts or smells off when opened, gets thrown out without tasting. The water-bath canner and jar tools are covered in canning gear.
The kit for this sauce
Each item is selected for a job in this recipe. Amazon listings, sellers, and prices can change; check the current details before you buy.
Roma Tomato Seed (300+)
The determinate paste tomato: it ripens most of its crop inside a three-week window. That is a liability for eating and an enormous advantage for sauce day.
Jalapeño Pepper Seed
The one you smoke into chipotle. Left on the plant to red and corked, then cold-smoked, a jalapeño stops being a taco garnish and becomes the backbone of an adobo.
Marconi Red Sweet Pepper Seed
A long Italian sweet pepper that roasts and peels far better than a bell. Romesco and any red-pepper paste wants this, not a supermarket bell.
Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion Seed
A long-day storage onion with enough sugar to sweat down without scorching. The aromatic base under every tomato sauce on this site.
Siberian Hardneck Seed Garlic, 1 lb
Planted in October, pulled in July. Hardneck garlic has bigger, easier-peeling cloves and gives you scapes in June, a free second crop that is itself excellent in green sauce.
58" Square Tomato Cages, 3-PackMust have
The conical wire tomato ring from the hardware store is 33 inches tall and an indeterminate San Marzano will laugh at it in July. Height and square geometry are what actually hold a loaded plant.
Garden Harvest Basket with Tool Caddy
A harvest basket that doubles as a colander means the hose rinse happens in the garden and the dirt stays outside. On a 20-pound tomato day that saves real time.
Digital Kitchen Scale, 11 lb, g/ozMust have
Fermentation brine is a percentage of weight, measured in grams rather than spoons. Without a gram scale you are guessing at the one number that determines whether the ferment is safe.
Nitrile Exam Gloves, 200 pcs, food-safeMust have
Capsaicin is oil-soluble and does not wash off with soap. Seeding a pound of habaneros bare-handed means eight hours of burning hands and one unforgettable mistake involving your own eye.
Gourmet Stainless 12-Quart Stock Pot
For twenty pounds of tomatoes, the Dutch oven is too small. Twelve quarts of non-reactive stainless is the batch-scale vessel, and it doubles as a water-bath canner in a pinch.
21.5-Quart Enamelware Water Bath Canner with RackMust have
Water-bath canning is the tested process for high-acid foods, meaning anything reliably below pH 4.6. The rack is required: jars sitting on the pot floor crack from direct heat.
Canning Essentials SetMust have
A jar lifter is a safety tool rather than a convenience: you are moving glass full of 212 °F sauce. The headspace gauge is the other half, since wrong headspace is the most common reason a seal fails.
Pint (16 oz) Regular Mouth Mason Jars with Lids and Bands
The right size for marinara, where a jar is one dinner for a family. Same rules as the half-pints: the glass is forever, the flat lid is not.
Mason Jar Lids, Regular Mouth, 12 CT (Pack of 6)Must have
The flat lid's sealing compound is designed for one heat cycle. Reusing it is the single most common cause of a jar that seals, then quietly unseals in November.
Canning Jar Labels, 360 pcs, removable
Date every jar. In March, three jars of red sauce are indistinguishable, and 'it's probably the one from August' is not a food-safety practice.
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Questions people actually ask
How is taco sauce different from the canned salsa?
It uses vinegar instead of bottled lime juice, 2½ cups for 8 quarts of tomato, plus a spoonful of sugar, and it is cooked down about an hour until thick. The canned Roma salsa is chunkier and gets its acid from lemon or lime juice. Both are separate tested recipes and neither is a substitute for the other.
Can I swap the vinegar for lemon juice?
Yes. NCHFP lists bottled lemon juice as a safe substitute for the vinegar in this recipe, at the same amount. Do not use fresh-squeezed juice.
Can I make it hotter?
Change the spices all you like. For the peppers, extension guidance on salsa lets one pepper type replace another at the same volume, so trade a long green chile for a serrano instead of adding more. Never raise the total amount of pepper.
Why does it simmer an hour?
NCHFP says to simmer, stirring frequently, until thick, which takes about an hour. Stir often near the end, because a thick tomato sauce scorches on the bottom of the pot.
Can I use quarts?
Not with these times. The NCHFP page gives process times for pints only.
Last reviewed 2026-11-09 by the SeedsToSauce Test Kitchen. Spotted something wrong? Tell us. Corrections get published.