Best Tomato Strainer in Canada (Sauce, Passata, Salsa)
The best tomato strainer for most Canadian home canners is a crank-operated sauce strainer like the Norpro Sauce Master, at about 170 Canadian dollars — you cook the tomatoes soft, feed them into the hopper, and pulp comes out one spout while skins and seeds eject the other, with no peeling or seeding. For high-volume canning of 50-plus pounds a year, an electric tomato strainer machine (about 1,000 dollars) does the same job faster. A food mill is the cheaper choice below about 10 pounds per batch.
If you can a case of tomatoes a year, the slowest, most tedious part isn’t the canning — it’s the peeling and seeding. A tomato strainer (also sold as a sauce maker or passata machine) removes that step entirely: you cook the tomatoes soft, feed them into a hopper, and a screw auger pushes smooth pulp out one spout while the skins and seeds eject out the other. No blanching to slip skins, no scooping seeds.
This is the step up from a food mill — worth it once you’re processing more than about 10–15 lb of tomatoes at a sitting.
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Norpro Sauce Master — the manual pick for most people
About $170 CAD on Amazon.ca and at Canadian kitchen shops.
The crank-operated strainer that most Canadian home canners land on. It clamps to the counter with a suction base, you turn the handle, and cooked tomatoes go in the top while pulp and waste come out two separate spouts. No peeling, no seeding, continuous feed.
Crank-operated tomato/sauce strainer with a suction-cup base. Cook tomatoes soft, feed them in — smooth pulp comes out one spout, skins and seeds eject the other. Takes interchangeable screens for berries, salsa, and pumpkin. ~$170 CAD.
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What’s good:
- No peeling or seeding — the entire reason to own one
- Continuous feed — keep dropping tomatoes in; a case processes in 20–30 minutes
- Suction base clamps to most counters — you crank with one hand, feed with the other
- Interchangeable screens — a fine screen for seedless berry jam, coarse for salsa, large-hole for pumpkin (sold separately)
- Hand-powered — nothing to plug in, nothing to burn out
Trade-offs:
- Mostly plastic — the body and hopper are plastic; treat it gently and it lasts years, but it’s not a lifetime cast-metal tool
- Manual effort — a big batch is a workout; fine for a case or two, tiring past that
- Clamp, not bolt — the suction base needs a smooth clean counter to hold well
Best for: households canning 1–3 cases of tomatoes a year, plus anyone who wants seedless raspberry or blackberry jam without the mesh-straining chore.
Electric tomato strainer machines — the high-volume option
About $1,000 CAD, at specialty and restaurant-supply retailers.
If a manual crank is the bottleneck — you’re putting up 50+ lb of tomatoes, or making sauce for an extended family — an electric tomato strainer machine does the same job with a motor instead of your arm. They’re a serious purchase (roughly $1,000), overkill for most households, and worth it only at real volume. Search “electric tomato strainer machine” on Amazon.ca to compare current models; the mechanism is identical to the manual unit, just powered.
Squeezo — the premium specialty strainer
The legendary heavy-duty crank strainer (stainless drum, lifetime parts) that serious preservers inherit. It’s a specialty item ordered from Lehman’s or canning specialists rather than Amazon.ca, at roughly $200+. If you want a buy-it-for-life manual strainer and don’t mind sourcing it from a specialty retailer, it’s the one. For everyone shopping on Amazon.ca, the Norpro above is the practical pick.
Do you actually need a strainer?
Below about 10 lb per batch, you don’t — a food mill (or even a sieve and some patience) is cheaper and stores smaller. The strainer earns its counter space when you’re canning tomatoes by the case: whole-tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, passata/tomato sauce, and salsa all get dramatically faster. Whatever you strain, cook the pulp down and process it following your Bernardin recipe and altitude.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between a tomato strainer and a food mill?
A food mill is a bowl with a hand-cranked blade that presses cooked food through a disc — you work in batches, and you refill it constantly. A tomato strainer (also called a sauce maker or passata machine) is continuous-feed: a screw auger pushes the pulp through a screen while skins and seeds eject out a separate spout, so you just keep feeding tomatoes in. For a few jars a food mill is fine; for a case of tomatoes a strainer is 5–10× faster.
Do I need to peel or seed the tomatoes first?
No — that's the whole point of a strainer. Core the tomatoes, quarter them, and cook them soft (10–15 minutes), then run them through. The skins and seeds separate automatically. Some people don't even core first for a very smooth sauce; the strainer handles it. You still cook the strained pulp down and can it following your Bernardin recipe and altitude.
Manual crank or electric?
Manual crank (like the Norpro Sauce Master) is right for most households — it clamps to the counter, costs around $170, and handles a case or two of tomatoes a season without complaint. Electric tomato strainer machines run about $1,000 and only pay off if you put up 50+ pounds of tomatoes a year, or make sauce for an extended family. Start manual; upgrade only if the crank becomes the bottleneck.
Can I strain berries or pumpkin with it too?
Yes, with the right screen. Most crank strainers, including the Norpro, take interchangeable screens — a fine screen for berry seeds (raspberry and blackberry jam without the seeds), a coarser one for salsa, and a large-hole screen for pumpkin or squash purée. The tomato screen ships with the unit; the others are sold separately.
Sources
- Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving (latest edition)