Water baths are fine if your can filling is acidic. Water bath meaning you boil the filled jars for a certain period and pull them out. Pressure canning is for when your foods aren't acidic enough for water baths.

If your pasta sauce has tomatoes, chances are it's acidic enough to just water bath, but to be sure, you should find out. You can get ph test strips to gauge, though I can't remember at the moment what level of acidity is the minimum. Lynn's link probably tells.

If it's not acidic enough, you can fiddle with the recipe by adding lemon juice, lime juice, vinegar, or something acidic until the proper level is reached. If that would ruin the taste of the sauce, you'll have to pressure can. And your not supposed to use a regular pressure cooker, you're supposed to use a pressure canner built especially for the purpose.

I sterilize my jars and lids, fill them up with hot stuff, wipe the rims, put on the lids, and water bath for however long the recipe says. I've never had a jar not seal except for the time Grandma insisted that it was OK to use an old Miracle Whip jar. Lid popped off during water bath. That jar got refridgerated and eaten right away. So, only use canning jars!

I've never had to can anything needing a pressure canner, so I don't even own one.

Let us know what you end up doing!

Anhata
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