Wash tomatoes and dip them in boiling water for 30-60 seconds or until skins split. Dip them in cold water and slip off skins and remove cores. Leave whole, cut in half, or dice tomatoes.
Heat water in a tea kettle to a boil. Add lemon juice to each sterile mason jar (1 tbsp. to each pint or 2 tbsp. for quarts). Then add salt to each mason jar (½tsp. to each pint or 1 tsp for quarts).
Pack prepared tomatoes either whole, halved, or diced into hot mason jars leaving ½ inch headspace. Shake jars to move tomatoes further down jar. Fill boiling water from kettle over tomatoes leaving ½inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and fill with more water if needed to cover tomatoes.
Wipe rims of jars and adjust lids and rings to jars finger tight. Process in boiling water bath canner for 40 minutes.
No Liquid Added
Repeat step 1 from Packed in Water instructions.
Add lemon juice and salt to each sterile mason jars (1 tbsp. lemon juice and ½tsp. salt to pints) or (2 tbsp. lemon juice and 1 tsp. salt to quarts).
Fill hot jars with raw tomatoes either whole, halved or diced and press until spaces between them fill with juice. Keep filling until ½ inch headspace is reached. Remove air bubbles, wipe rims, adjust lids and rings, and process in water bath canner for 85 minutes.