After learning how great my new Victorio Food Strainer is at making homemade applesauce, I was super excited to use it to make Homemade Tomato Sauce. I was finally able to experiment with it a couple weeks ago.
The easiest way I’ve found to prepare tomatoes for sauce is to roast them in the oven. Then, instead of running them through the blender like I have in the past, this time, I put them through my Victorio.
Or rather, I had my friend Piper run them through my Victorio. She and her brothers had spent the day with us, and she was happy to come into the kitchen and help me. You know what this proves? It proves that in a house that holds seven boys, sometimes we women need to stick together. And it also proves that the Victorio is easy enough for an eight year old to use!
She had that tomato sauce strained in no time. And look! It’s so pretty it looks like it came directly out of a jar from the store. Except that it didn’t. It’s homemade and it’s organic and it’s made from fresh tomatoes from our garden!
A few days later, I made some awesome spaghetti sauce (um, if I do say so myself). I really meant to be bragging about the Victorio’s capability to make incredibly smooth tomato sauce, not on my ability to make delicious spaghetti sauce. Really.
I know several of you have shared that you also decided to invest in a Victorio Food Strainer. Are you pleased with it so far? I let my friend Jenny borrow mine and she loved it so much she bought one for herself. I’m telling you – it’s an incredible tool for the kitchen if you do a lot of canning!
I love my Victorio Food Strainer. I have made tomato sauce, apple sauce, and salsa with it. I even loaned it to a friend of mine who loves using it. It makes canning so much easier.
Hmmm, I’m trying to think of if I would use it enough. I just haven’t quite gotten into canning. I need to buy your e-book!
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I have an old school 1979 Squeezo. Love. it. Worth every penny. Bought it off ebay after seeing it at a friend’s and using it several years ago. We totally steal good ideas from each other with no shame. :D
I have the same strainer and my kids love helping make sauce with it. They get a kick out of watching the “tomato guts” come out of the tube.
I never even roast my tomatoes, just wash and chop to a workable size, then run thru the strainer. I find it easier to work with cold rather than hot tomatoes.
i used to do it that way too, but have found that roasting them gets a ton of extra water out and the sauce comes out much better and thicker! just like the stuff from the store!
How long do you do at them for and do you do anything special to them?
Wow this sounds fabulous! I thought the price was going to blow me away… well it did because I wasn’t expecting it to be under $100! Might have to see if we have that in the budget next month… especially since I just ordered 20 lbs of juicing apples from Azure. :-) Plus, our farmer’s market is today! Going to see if they still sell tomatoes by the bushel. <3
Do you have to use a certain variety of tomatoes? We only grow Rutgers. My husband didn’t like the taste of Romas after I canned them. Thanks!
You can use whatever variety of tomatoes you would like!
I tried roasting last year and had great success and we enjoy the flavor with the garlic, peppers, and onions added. I pureed the tomatoes (after removing the skins) with a stick blender(we don’t mind the seeds) and extras and then put them in the crock-pot overnight with the lid vented (to remove even more water).
I might have to try using the strainer for tomato sauce.
Thanks – June
That spaghetti sauce looks great! Do you have a recipe for it?
Not really – I just dump in herbs! I may try to measure it out sometime and share!
So you used to pulverize the seeds and skin into the sauce and now you remove them with the Victorio? Can you taste a difference or notice a different texture? Just curious…
Right. It makes a huge difference and I love having it so smooth and seedless!
That looks great! The ‘pre-sauce’ looks so nice, rich.
I have the old squeeze O but wondered if there was a motorized version.
I’ve been cooking my tomatoes with the skins on and then running them through the food processor. It turns out pretty smooth, though I enjoy a good rustic sauce also. What kind of a difference in volume do you end up with? I feel like I waste less when I use the skins. Any thoughts?
Very little difference in volume. There is a tiny amount of skin/seeds that are filtered out, and the result is SOO nice!
you can run the pulp through more than once to squeeze out more if you want!
I just got one and used it last week. I didn’t roast and it came through watery. No worries though, I strained it and canned the juice as well. I didn’t end up with as much sauce as I wanted but that’s ok. We’ll use the juice too :) Does it take a while to roast tomatoes in big batches? I hear the flavor is great but don’t really want to add more time to my canning process…
It didn’t take as long to roast them as it did to cook them on the stovetop!
I love that this process actually saves time. :)
I’d love to hear from those of you have used a foley mill and a victorio..how is the victorio better/easier/faster? We’ve used the foley to do both tomato & apple sauce, thinking it was great. But, always on the lookout for improvements! Thankssomuch (:
I have both the foley mill and the victorio. I didn’t see how (after using the foley mill) the victorio would save me time, but WOW it is amazing!
I just got an email from my step-mother, she bought me a victorio and 4 other screens to go with. I am BEYOND excited to do the next bushel of tomatoes next week!
And it came in yesterday morning! I unpacked it and honestly I was a bit surprised at how flimsy and cheap the metal part feels :(. It had lots of divots and even a ‘hole’ in one of the tabs. I called victorio customer service line and they are seeing what they can do. However I did make mash potatoes with it last night with some from our garden and it was a BIG HIT!
Can’t wait to get another bushel of tomatoes hopefully this week from the farmer down the street and try to make sauce!
Excited that it arrived. I’m surprised the metal part is flimsy – mine is rock solid. Glad you called customer service about it. Hopefully they’ll send you a good one!
Im thinking I got a lemon honestly, it looks like something was up with the mols(?)
Amazon offered to replace the entire thing if victorio does, so im covered either way :)
Customer service gal was great (and American- not a huge deal I’m married to a brazilian-Spaniard but it does make it easier :)
Good grief typos, sorry nursing my daughter and she is kicking me!
It should read:
“Im thinking I got a lemon honestly, it looks like something
was up with the mold(?)
Amazon offered to replace the entire thing if victorio does not, so im covered either way :)
Customer service gal was great (and American- not a huge deal I’m married to a brazilian-Spaniard but it does make it easier :)
Victorio is sending me a new body for my strainer. I’m very impressed by their customer service!
Did you use a special attachment to the Victorio? I tried roasting and Victorio-ing last night and mine did NOT come out so thick. My only guess is that you either used a different attachment with wider holes or you roasted and strained your tomatoes for a longer period of time.
No, I just used a regular attachment that came with it. Sounds like it needed to be cooked down more so it wouldn’t be so liquidy.
Type of tomato is a big factor too probably?
We roasted until the baking dish was filled 3/4 full of water, took about 2 hours at 350- degrees.
I was also thinking about adding other veggies, that would probably make it thicker too.
We did tomatoes again and learned a little bit through trial and error.
Our first batch through the V came out looking like straight tomato juice.
I was worried, our second Pyrex full was ruined by my husband breaking the
Pyrex container in the sink next to the strainer, BUT I saw that he
was about to dump
the colander full of tomatoes that also had a bunch of water on top
into the V to be strained.
So first when you strain, make sure all liquid strains away, if you have
a fine mesh colander you might need to get one with bigger holes, it’s
easier.
We then noticed that after a while the first batch thickened as it sat cooling.
maybe something to do with the heat?
We then made salsa with the salsa screen. #1, do all veggies other than
tomatoes first before tomatoes! Onions get smushy but I like them that way
in my salsa :) Peppers my husband had a little difficulty in getting them
through the screen. Tomatoes no prob, hence the tip to do the tomatoes first.
So we switched to the pumpkin screen and it came out thicker but the seeds
were in it, so I put it through a fine mesh colander and it was good!
PS Laura, your comment box doesn’t let me see my typing when it goes past
the edge of the comment box! That’s why I did all the “Entering” in this
post!
do you make your spagethii sauce like your tomato sauce
Yep! I just add basil, garlic powder, and oregano once it’s done cooking.
So in following you in this process; after you roast your tomatoes you then strain the liquid off the shriveled up tomatoes. The next step is to process them through the Victorio Strainer to remove skin, membrane and seeds followed by canning in your jars. Is this correct?
Yes, that is correct. :)
All i got was juice. What did i do wrong?
I’m not sure – maybe the tomatoes needed to be cooked down more?
Have you ever used this for raspberries?
No, and I think you would need to purchase a separate attachment. But with that attachment, it would work great!
I’m guessing you use a pressure canner to can your sauce? Do you have one you prefer? We are going to be making sauce for the first time this season. We have two huge tomato plants full to the gills with tomatoes! I want to make sure we do everything properly so we can enjoy our harvest for as long as possible!
Here is a link to how Laura makes her sauce. Hope this helps! https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/oven-roasted-tomato-sauce-easy
Last night for the first time I used a steamer for extracting juice (I used it for blackberries). It can be used for tomatoes, but the booklet says the juice will come out looking clear yellow. From my one-time experience plus what the booklet says I think this will be perfect for extracting the liquid juice before I put the tomatoes in the Victorio Strainer. I am going to try it tomorrow and I think I will get some nice thick tomato sauce with an absolute minimum of work. I will also have the clear tomato juice to can and I don’t mind that it will be yellowish instead of red: it will still look alright in soups and for making rice and will still have the tomato flavor (I think). Now if I can figure out how to take videos with my new camera maybe I will post a video on YouTube.
How long did you roast them? What tempereture did you roast them?
Here are the specifics of roasting the tomatoes: https://www.heavenlyhomemakers.com/oven-roasted-tomato-sauce-easy