Making your own pizza sauce in your slow cooker is a great way to use up fresh tomatoes from your garden and the result tastes amazing! You can can this pizza sauce in jars or freeze it for long term food storage.
This can be done several different ways, I will first post how I do it.
I wash tomatoes with vinegar and water to help clean them, picking out any that are spoiling or bruised ( soak in huge buckets).
I cut the top off of the tomato, and then cut out much of the core and scrape the seeds out.
In a Roma Tomato, it's easiest to cut the tomato in half to get the seeds out.
In a tomato that is more a round size, it's easier to cut the top off, and then squeeze the tomato to get the seeds and juice out.
I then boil, on medium, the tomatoes and chopped onions down until they are much more liquified, stirring often.
I drain off the excess juices and place them into my 6 quart or larger slow cooker.
I add the garlic, honey and bay leaves.
Set on HIGH for about 4 to 6 hours.
Do not place the lid on, once it is warm and stir every 30 minutes or so.
Remove bay leaves when it's done.
If it still seems quite runny I would add a small can of tomato paste or dehydrated tomatoes.
I then let it cool down a bit, and pour in a large container (I use my large water pitcher) and I use my immersion blender to make it a nice smooth consistency.
Add your basil, oregano and thyme, and taste test it (I end up adding a bit more honey to mine).
Remember if you are water bath canning add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each jar and you need to follow the ratios of tomato vs onion/garlic exactly.
Pour hot pizza sauce into pint jars, filling to within 1/2 inches of the top.
Wipe the top of the jar with a towel soaked in a bit of vinegar to clean off the jar.
Cover with a clean mason jar lid (that is been in boiling water) and screw a clean band on, tight but not too tight.
You can then freeze them, and in fact I had an extra amount that didn't fully fill a jar and froze that one with no issues.
Water bath can for 35 minutes (pints) If you do quarts it's 40 minutes.
Or pressure can at 11 pounds pressure for 20 minutes at 1000 feet (please check a Presto manual online if you are at a different elevation for the poundage).
If you are pressure canning quarts do it for 25 quarts.