Freezing breaks down the cell walls in vegetables, that reduces a portion to water. When you have already blended them, that makes all those little chunks more vulnerable as well. It's similar to freezing fresh vegetables in that way. If you had a blast chiller the results might be a bit better. Were you using a vacuum sealer? I don't know if that would help. They're harder to find, but there are San Marzano tomatoes in 14 oz. cans.

Plllog is right. Freezing usually results in more liquid. You can do what most home pickle relish makers do, just drain off some excess juice before using the tomatoes for pizza sauce. Or divide the whole tomatoes up into portions without blending. Then pour off the thawed liquid and just process the whole tomato solids.

(FWIW, in order to safely can pickle relish, due to density issues, the solids must slosh freely around in the liquid brine. That means the end product is pretty watery. The solution is to pour off some of the liquid brine upon opening.)

Oh rats. I was afraid of that. I guess I am going to have to start using fresh tomatoes. I can't use jar sauce either because I just don't use enough to make it worthwhile. When I used one of the sauces this evening, I had to scoop out whatever was solid (maybe about three tablespoons) and the rest was water. Sigh, I will just blanch the skins off a couple of Romas and smoosh then. That'll do it. Honestly, I am not that enamored of the San Marzanos anyway (they aren't the real ones).

You could do as I do, and cook the sauce with spices and herbs to reduce it and thicken and intensify the tomato flavor.

Get a very fine mesh sieve, strain the watery sauce in the refrigerator overnight.

I have been making lots of sauce with my garden tomatoes using this method.

dcarch

I'll try the sieve method but I am afraid there aren't even solids to remain in the sieve (since I have 5 more bags). It's that watery.

I use canned tomato paste for making pizza sauce. No problems with it being runny, even when it's been frozen.

What about adding tomato paste to thicken the sauce?

Or, along the same lines as Carol's suggestion, tomato powder. It certainly would thicken up any watery sauce. And it doesn't require refrigeration and dealing with leftovers. You only reconstitute what you need for the moment. I make pizza sauce with it, but it can easily be used as a thickening agent for watery tomato-based sauces.

A thought for the future.....use a combo of tomato sauce and paste with seasonings and cook down.....I then divide and freeze......thaw and use, it is never watery/runny,,,,,I have had it turn out that way, not since I have started using the sauce/paste combo.

lol. Runny sauce - that's what I get when I try to be hip. Two ingredient sauce is the new wave in pizzerias because it's supposed to taste fresh. (Check out the recipe for a three ingredient version of the sauce - Roberta's Pizza Sauce from the New York Times). However, in commercial pizzerias it's clearly not a problem because they use so much of it. I have plenty of other sauces in my freezer from Bolognese to the sauce I learned to make in Florence (carrots, celery, onions, garlic and canned tomatoes - actually Pomi) and this just doesn't happen to any of them. It's just the San Marzano canned tomatoes that liquify in the freezer.

I opened a can of paste the other night for something else and I was kind of eyeing it up thinking I should mix it into the runny sauce but I knew also that it would radically change the taste so I didn't. It wasn't a really big deal for the pizza I was making (believe me, I was more upset by the grainy ricotta which mark my words I will NEVER use again on pizza).

I have never heard of tomato powder but I am kind of liking the concept of that.

Someone should invent single serving pizza sauce.

Our local supermarket has this & it's pretty good:

Re single serving pizza sauce. In my area, Boboli sells single serving pizza sauce.

I don't like a lot of tomato-y sauce on pizza. I just use a non-lumpy, puree texture, spiced sauce. I don't get the "tastes fresher" from canned. Your romas sound like a better way to go all around (i.e., both for "fresh" flavor and for quantity), especially if they weren't real San Marzanos (or at least from Italy), which do have a distinctive terroir. They're also canned with basil and you can easily replicate that. :)

For the five bags in the freezer, you could make a big pot of tomato soup or traditional long cooked tomato sauce and dump them in. The excess water will reduce out.

Ooh, I love those little cans of sauce. I am going to try Whole Foods to see if maybe they carry it. I am in Florida so getting that Publix sauce is easy too.

I admit to having a funny relationship with tomato sauce. Growing up we had a summer house in NJ and my Sicilian grandmother used to grow about a 1/2 acre of tomatoes and then made tomato sauce which she then jarred for the winter. She was a tomato expert and would make the point that you were not supposed to cook the tomatoes for hours - like some people did - because it turned the tomatoes bitter. So I always try a "less is more" approach to tomatoes!

Also, when the summer house was sold and she no longer did the tomato sauce, she swore by the Red Pack brand of supermarket canned tomatoes. I believe those are still available at many supermarkets.

I found this article about San Marzano tomatoes which I thought was interesting. I am no longer going to buy the San Marzano which will liberate me from getting the 28 oz cans. The Fake Rolex of Canned Foods

Interesting article. Thanks!

I was particularly interested that the test mentioned liked Muir Glen. That's what I mostly use. I do sometimes buy Cento, which are the real deal San Marzano, and really do have the difference in flavor, but not for making tomato sauce. :)

I would add this to what your grandmother said--I'm sure she was absolutely correct about how to handle her lovingly raised tomatoes. The long cooked sauce is about a transformation point, which seems to happen for me after about five hours of simmering. The body changes, the meat changes, the flavor comes together. It's a totally different thing. And wonderful. But it doesn't need beautiful, fresh tomatoes, or San Marzanos. It doesn't get bitter...or it might and then go sweet again.

So, if you're going to Whole Foods, look for Muir Glen crushed tomatoes in a smaller can. That might be very close to what you've been wanting. They do have a "fresher" flavor than most canned tomatoes.

But it doesn't need beautiful, fresh tomatoes, or San Marzanos.

I can attest to that. The sauce was made from not very beautiful tomatoes. She always put them out on a huge table for a few days to ripen in the sun (sun dried tomatoes?). Then got out the tomato strainer and away we went. It was a big production. My job was putting the basil leaf on top.

Thanks for letting me know the Muir Glen is at Whole Foods. Maybe I will go down there tonight to get a couple of cans.

Mist canned (in a tin/aluminum container) taste metallic to me. I'll have to try the Glen Muir sometime.