Home Canned Salsa

From garden to jar, this very simple home canned salsa is a recipe of peak-season flavor, preserving the vibrant taste of fresh ingredients for year-round enjoyment. Each jar holds the perfect balance of sweet, garden tomatoes, green onions, and a customizable blend of spices. A simple water-bath canning process transforms fresh produce into a pantry staple, ready to elevate tacos, chips, or any dish that needs a burst of authentic taste.

Good food to me is homegrown, homemade, or home canned. Few foods taste better or sweeter than the produce you pluck fresh off the plant, and delicious made into home canned salsa. Garden tomatoes are bursting right now, so we tend to be eating them on everything!

We love salsa on breakfast foods, casseroles, layered dips, in enchiladas, nachos, tacos, salsa chicken, and it’s delicious served over goat cheese. The list goes on with what you can do with salsa.

All you need is 20 cups of chopped tomatoes to get started with this recipe today! Remember that with salsa, you should always taste it before you can it. You may want to add more chili powder? Or you may not want to add sugar. Taste as you go, and you will be delighted at the outcome!

Ingredients typically found in home canned salsa

While recipes vary, the core ingredients for homemade canned salsa are often the same:

• Spices and herbs: Salt, pepper, chili powder, coriander, sugar.
• Tomatoes: The foundation of the salsa, often peeled, cored, and chopped are tomatoes with tomato paste.
• Varieties: This year’s varieties of tomatoes in our garden are: Costeluto Genovese, Golden Jubilee, Purple Russian, San Marzano, Cherokee Purple, Fantastic, Omar’s, Cosmonaut, Black Mauri, and Beefmaster. Whew! We always get our starts from our friend, Terri, who grows a zillion of them in her greenhouse every year.
• Green chilies: A mix of green chilies help create a balanced flavor profile.
• Onions and garlic: Both white and green onions and garlic help rovide essential aromatic and pungent flavor notes.
• Acid: Commercially bottled vinegar (with at least 5% acidity) are crucial for safely preserving the salsa.
• Sugar: A tad bit of sugar brings the recipe together for perfect flavors!

How do you make the salsa?

1. Mix together and bring to a boil; simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Jar the sauce and process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

Canning tools you may need

If this is your first time waterbath canning, you’ll also need a few specialty tools.

• Pint canning jars, lids, and rings
• Large canner (or large stock pot with lid)
• Canning trivet or rack that can fit in the canner/stock pot
• Jar grabber
• A wide mouth funnel
• A headspace checker or clear plastic ruler
• Buy almost all of this stuff in a canning starter kit!

Sandy’s tips and substitutions:

• Change the spice level: you can safely change the ratio of hot to sweet peppers as long as you keep the same total volume of peppers
• Swap (some) of the vinegar: you can safely swap out half of the vinegar for an equal amount of bottled (not fresh squeezed!) lemon or lime juice
• Add dried herbs and spices: you can safely add dried herbs and spices (I like cumin!) to this recipe, you cannot add more fresh herbs safely
• Make a smoother or blended salsa: home canned salsa recipes will be on the chunkier side because the density of the food is important when it comes to canning safety. So while I can’t recommend you blend this salsa before canning, you can blend this salsa right before eating-most immersion blenders fit perfectly in wide-mouth canning jars!
• Canning safety: When canning salsa, it’s critical to follow a scientifically tested recipe from a reliable source, such as a university extension program. Do not alter the proportions of ingredients, especially the amount of tomatoes, onions, or peppers, as this can affect the pH and safety of the product. Also the acid (vinegar) is essential. Incorrectly canned salsa can pose a risk of botulism poisoning.

Serving

Serve with your favorite Mexican foods or a summer barbecue or for breakfast with scrambled eggs or a breakfast burrito. Probably the most common way to serve salsa is with chips!

More salsa recipes you may want to try:

• Zucchini Salsa
• Mexican Cabbage Salsa
• Spicy Black Bean Salsa

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Get the Recipe:

Home Canned Salsa

Sandy Coughlin

Homemade canned salsa is a recipe of fresh ingredients; each jar has a perfect balance of sweet, garden tomatoes, green onions, spices. Makes 10-12 pints

Prep Time: 1 hour hr

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Total Time: 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Yield: 36

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Ingredients

 

1x2x3x

• 20 cups chopped tomatoes
• 2 cups chopped white onion
• 1 cup chopped green onion tops
• 4 tablespoons salt
• 2 tablespoons hot chili powder
• 3 tablespoons pepper
• 2 6 ounce cans tomato paste
• 3 cups green chilies
• 12 gloves pressed garlic
• 1 cup vinegar
• 1 pinch coriander
• ½ cup sugar, optional

Equipment

• Pint canning jars, lids, and rings

Instructions

 

• Mix together and bring to a boil; simmer for 10 minutes.
• Jar the sauce and process in hot water bath for 20 minutes.

Cuisine: American

Course: condiment

Calories: 47kcal, Carbohydrates: 11g, Protein: 1g, Fat: 0.3g, Saturated Fat: 0.05g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 0.1g, Sodium: 1016mg, Potassium: 292mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 7g, Vitamin A: 319IU, Vitamin C: 15mg, Calcium: 52mg, Iron: 2mg

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