You can make almost any kind of thing you like using tomatoes. Stewed (with onions, celery, peppers, and some other flavors added) are good as are whole peeled or diced. Sloppy Joes are similar to the Italian sauce, except for the added herbs. Usually only onions and peppers are used, and maybe a bit of garlic, and sugar, as well as that all important citric acid. Its a thick sauce, so if your planning on using a food strainer to get all the pulp extracted from the seeds and skins, you can also cut the tomatoes in halves, scoop out most of the seeds and liquid, and then run the rest through the food strainer (Villaware type). Also choose tomato types for making sauce, like San Marzano, Oxheart, plum types, and Opalka and a few others. Start your own plants from seeds so you will have the right choices for sauce making. Growing beefsteaks and the other big 'salad/eating' types are just for that purpose, and don't usually make as rich a sauce the types I mentioned. I used to grow over 200 tomato plants every year, which consisted of about 6 different types.

Yep, it is called chili sauce. It makes awesome Manwiches.
I canned some a few years back. I really liked it. The recipe I use was pressure canned. It has celery, onion, tomatoes, and peppers in it, along with all the spices.
I can't find it right now.
However, the one from the link below is similar.
Also, the Ball Blue book has one for chili sauce that is like it, too.
The spices makes it so it is more brownish, not bright red. I hear it is good on eggs, too. I did not try that.
I remember the recipe I used said to BWB, but I pressure canned it for safety measures, just in case.

Here is a link that might be useful: spicy chili sauce

Agree with the BBB stewed tomatoes Ken mentioned - makes great Sloppy Joe's. BB also has recipes for several different canned tomato sauces - spicy, italian, plain, seasoned, etc. so pick up a Ball Blue Book or the Ball Complete Book.

As long as you use the required acidification (bottled lemon juice or citric acid) and only dried spices and pressure can there are many recipes available. But then there are also many unsafe ones floating around out there too.

The link Linda Lou gave you is the safest source and NCHFP also has a great spaghetti sauce recipe that can be used for sloppy joe's.

Dave

Yes, and I've used it as Manwich for years, pressure canned in pints which is just about right for a heavy pound of ground beef. Also good to add chopped hot dogs, a little ground pork, or a dab of anything else lurking in the fridge. I'll get back to you with the recipe.

Great that you're looking outside the box with this tomato thing. There are SO many possibilities to keep you off the grocery shelves. Have you tried Ball mixes (ketchup, pizza sauce, BBQ, etc) or Mrs. Wages? Especially Mrs. Wages is awesome.

Yes, I think that Mrs. Wages mixes are far beter tasting compared to the Ball ones. I always disliked Ball dill pickle mixes only because they have sugar in them. Spatini is also a spagetti sauce mix that has been made available again as it ws bought up by Knorr. This mix is used to make fresh sauces. If I want more thickness, I like to add tomato powder and dried peppers and onions, which help to soak up some of the excess water in any sauce.

Here's the recipe I've used for years. After browning and draining meat, just dump the sauce into the skillet and bring up to a bubble. Depending on your sauce, it may need to cook down just a bit, or just heat through. I usually make a triple batch.

4 - 5 lbs tomatoes (about 12)
2 onions
1 green pepper
1 Tbsp salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup vinegar (any kind)
Peel core and seed the tomatoes. Simmer all ingredients together until desired consistency. Process 15 minutes at 8-10 lbs. pressure.