the skins remain like little pieces of cellophane....unless you really puree the whole mess in a blender or food processor..
Remove the skins....you will be glad you did.
Linda C

Chances are they won't cook down into the sauce.

You could probably get the sauce smooth with the skins in it by giving it a whirl in the blender or food processor.

Rusty

Apparently someone else was posting while I was typing.

Rusty

OK, thanks.

I don't peel them-- I can't imagine peeling the amount of tomatoes I put into a sauce-- but I do whir up with an immersion blender. If you have a food processor or an immersion blender, I think it's easier than peeling. Whatever you do, don't listen to anyone who tells you to squeeze out the 'watery stuff' inside. The goop around the seeds is where all the flavor lives (turns red with fury)

Skin? What about seeds?

I cook everything, then I use a strainer to remove the skin and seeds.

dcarch

I like chunky tomato sauce so I always remove them.

Last year I blanched and cooked up...or down...3, 5 gallon buckets of tomatoes. It's really not hard to blanch and slip the skins....and I really hate finding a piece of cellophane skin in my sauce....One pot of boiling water...pop in the tomatoes...leave for 1 minute...place in colander, put in sink to cool, more tomatoes in water...start peeling the ones in the sink, etc etc...it really goes fast.
And I too like a little texture in my sauce...but not skin.

I don't like skins in sauce or in anything with cooked tomatoes. I get so annoyed when I open a can of tomatoes with lots of skin and hard stringy cores. Guess that's why people can their own, huh? Quality control...

seagrass

Big difference in what each of us like isn't it. I hate any tomatoes with skins left on. I'm another one who gets extremely annoyed to find skins in a can of tomatoes. Most particularly those expensive roasted ones everyone's always talking about. I never buy those anymore.

I agree, there's a big difference in what some people don't notice or doesn't bother them and what does.

I don't like the skins at all and no matter how much they get blended, I get those little pieces. LindaC described it well, like little pieces of cellophane.

I always peel the tomatoes and it's why I can't use the cherry type tomatoes for soup without straining the stuff out.

Funny, I eat the skins just fine if the tomatoes are raw...

annie

I cook with the skins on. They tend to roll up into matchstick kind of things. They never bothered me. They have some flavor. Probably could consider them fiber. I've heard they are poisonous. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family if I recall. I'm not dead yet but certainly headed in that direction... slowly I hope. This time of year my tomatoes go in the bottom of the pot and get worked over with a potato masher. About the only thing I throw out is the stem attachment point... sometimes the flower end if it looks overly crunchy.

: )
lyra

I will throw my 2 cents in on this subject. I was told that the skins have a lot of vitamins so just blend everything into a food processor. My sauce came out bitter and nasty. A real waste of a lot of tomatoes....all heirlooms....raised from seed and babied all spring/summer.

However seeds don't bother me. Go figure. I've never noticed any bitterness with the seeds left in.

So do what you like but I think if you have any prediliction to a sensitive pallet I would recommend removing the skins and seeds.

When I make sauce (before this bad experiment) I usually drop the tomatoes in a hot bath for 30 seconds or so....remove them with tongs and put them in ice water. Remove the skins and core center and place a bunch in a collander over a bucket and salt generously. Let them sit for a while and then everything but the juice goes in a copper bottom pot. I add italian spices and let the sauce cook down to a desired thickness. This can take a day or sometimes more. Then I freeze because I can add garlic or whatever else I want without worrying about acid levels for canning.

Homemade sauce is one of those labors of love that is truly worth the trouble. Wait until the cold winter to drag out a quart or two. Summer in a jar most definitely.

Duane

If I'm making a quick fresh sauce I just chop up the tomatoes and add them to the pan. I actually like tomato seeds and the skins get lost in the mix. I eat a lot of fresh tomatoes and I've never found the skins of tomatoes to be bitter.

If I'm making a big pot of sauce I use canned tomatoes so skins aren't a consideration.

Ann

I do remove the skins when making sauce. Thirty seconds in boiling water. Scoop them out into an ice bath and the skins peel off easily. I don't remove any seeds, ribs or gel. That is where the flavor is. Sometimes I leave the sauce chunky and sometimes I blend it smooth. Depends on what I am in the mood for. NancyLouise

I remove the skins for sauce, too. Blanch for 30 seconds or so and the skins slip right off.

Although the "bits of cellophane" (as Linda so aptly put it) don't really bother me I prefer to not have them in my sauce if it can be helped.

Never really messed with trying to remove the seeds, tho.

Linda