Tools · buyer's guide
Best Food Mills for Tomato Sauce and Canning (2026)
Come August, a few paste-tomato plants bury you. Each one yields about 10 pounds, and paste tomatoes should be canned within about 48 hours of picking, so you need to work fast. Peeling and seeding by hand is the slow, miserable part. A food mill does it for you: you crank whole cooked tomatoes through and it spits out smooth pulp on one side and skins and seeds on the other. Here are three picks to turn the glut into sauce you can store.
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How we picked
The job is simple: separate smooth pulp from skins and seeds with no peeling. We weighted how easily the crank turns, whether the parts are stainless or food-grade so tomato acid does not corrode them, and how it clamps or sits so it does not slide off the counter.
A mill is not a blender. A blender chops the skins and seeds right back into the sauce and makes it bitter, while a mill leaves them behind. That is the whole reason to own one.
Why it beats peeling by hand
Skipping the peel step is the big time save. You cook the tomatoes whole until soft, then run them through the mill. No blanching, no ice bath, no burnt fingers.
It pays off at volume. Paste tomatoes yield about 10 pounds per plant, so even four plants give you 40 pounds to process, and a mill turns a full-day chore into a couple of hours.
Our picks
- Best for seed-free, skin-free sauce
Food Mill
Best overall
- It removes skins and seeds in one crank, so you get smooth sauce without peeling a single tomato.
- The swappable disks let you go fine for sauce or coarse for applesauce and mashed potatoes, so it earns its shelf space year-round.
- Downside: it is a hand crank, so a big batch is a workout, and you have to stop and scrape the trapped skins off the disk every few pounds.
- Best for storing the sauce
Mason Jars
Best for storage
- Glass jars with two-piece lids are the standard for canned sauce and do not pick up the tomato smell the way plastic does.
- Reusable for years, and they stack neatly on a pantry shelf.
- Downside: the flat lids are single-use for a safe seal, so you buy fresh lids each season.
- Best for shelf-stable jars
Water-Bath Canner
Best for shelf storage
- It makes the sauce shelf-stable so it keeps for months with no freezer space.
- The same canner handles all your high-acid produce, from sauce to salsa to pickles.
- Downside: tomatoes are borderline on acidity, so you must add bottled lemon juice per a tested recipe or the jars are not safe. Follow the recipe every time.
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Questions, answered straight
A blender chops the skins and seeds back into the sauce, which makes it bitter and gritty. A food mill leaves the skins and seeds behind and gives you smooth pulp. If you want clean sauce without peeling, the mill is the right tool.
No, that is the point. You cook the tomatoes whole until soft, then crank them through the mill and it strips the skins for you. No blanching or ice bath.
Plan for volume. Paste tomatoes yield about 10 pounds per plant, and it takes several pounds of fresh tomatoes to make a quart of thick sauce because so much cooks down to water. Four plants give you plenty for a canning day.
Yes, when you follow a tested recipe. Home tomatoes are borderline on acidity, so add bottled lemon juice per the recipe before water-bath canning. Do not skip that step or change the amounts.