Preserves for Winter

A delicious winter salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers will be no worse than a winter salad made from tasteless greenhouse vegetables.

Tomatoes canned in their own juice are one of the purest preserves you can make – just ripe tomatoes, salt and fresh tomato puree, with no vinegar or added water. The result is intensely flavorful whole tomatoes sitting in thick, naturally sweet juice, ready to use all winter in soups, sauces and stews.

The method skips sterilization entirely: hot jars are filled with blanched tomatoes, topped with boiling homemade tomato juice and sealed immediately. Small and medium tomatoes go in whole, while large overripe ones are blended into the juice. Below we give exact proportions per quart jar, walk through every step with photos, and share the easiest way to peel tomatoes quickly using a brief blanch-and-ice-bath method.

Canned tomatoes and cucumbers in the same jar is one of the most popular mixed preserves in Eastern European home canning – you open one jar and get two favorite pickled vegetables at once. Quart-sized (liter) jars are the ideal format for a single family serving.

This no-sterilization recipe uses a triple hot-pour method that keeps the cucumbers crisp and the tomatoes tender without any special equipment. The brine strikes a balanced sweet-and-sour note that complements both vegetables equally well. Below we provide exact salt, sugar and vinegar ratios per jar, show how to pack the vegetables for the best fit, and advise on picking cucumbers and tomatoes of the right size so everything cooks evenly.