I call Tomato Sauce as thickened tomato juice. I usually use paste tomatoes and cook them down to almost sauce stage for my juice, since I like my juice very thick.

I have a hard time getting sauce or paste without scorching it.

To my definition, sauce will pour out of the jar, while paste needs 'help'. Pureed would be the first step of getting sauce, before cooking it down.

The post above is a good description.

However, in Annie's Salsa recipe, it is referring to commercially prepared sauce. You CAN use homemade, but the reference is to commercial since it is sold as such.

In order of thickness:
Tomato juice
Tomato puree
Tomato sauce
Tomato paste

Both the paste and sauce in Annie's recipe are for consistency purposes. They may be adjusted or omitted entirely. I have used paste only (a little more of it) and left out the sauce with good results.

When you make it, the consistency in the pan before jarring is pretty darned close to what you get after canning, so it can be adjusted to your preference before canning.

To "myfamilysfarm": Have you tried reducing your tomatoes in the oven instead of stovetop? No scorching!!
Just a tiny bit on the sides of the pan where the liquid level has gone down if you don't stir often enough.
I like it because I can do something else in between stirrings.

Deanna

Deanna did a good job of explaining the difference in them but making your own tomato sauce is time consuming and can be difficult if you have no experience doing it.

And to make it just to make Annie's Salsa is a waste of time and effort. Especially since you will be using the canned tomato paste too. Use the canned tomato sauce called for in the recipe. Several brands are available including Hunt's, Contadina, and Del Monte. Once you open a can of plain tomato sauce you will quickly see the difference between it and the others you mention.

Dave

I haven't cooked my juice on the stovetop for years. I like using my roaster oven, 18 qt at a time. I actually have 3 of them. Patience is my biggest problem.

Thanks guys, Its also great to see that I can omit it. I prefere the chunky style as aposed to the smoth thick style.