Canned Tomato Salsa

Learn how to can salsa using this delicious salsa recipe for canning, (complete with detailed canning instructions) using fresh tomatoes, green chiles, jalapeños!

Sometimes, during the summer, our tomato plants decide to have a party on the vine, so to speak, and produce way more tomatoes than we can possibly eat, even if we are eating them every day, sliced, salted, and served with a little balsamic or mayo.

What do you do with your excess garden tomatoes?

Canning Salsa With Excess Garden Tomatoes

Tomato juice or gazpacho are both great ways to use up lots of tomatoes. Or, if you like salsa, try canning some tomato salsa to enjoy throughout the year.

Pull a jar out in the middle of winter and use as a dip with tortilla chips (if the jars last that long, we go through salsa pretty quickly around here!)

Canning Salsa Ingredients

This canned salsa recipe uses specific amounts of ingredients, balancing the non-acidic ingredients with the amount of added acid needed to make the recipe safe. For one batch you’ll need:

• 5 pounds of tomatoes
• 1 pound of Anaheim green chilies
• 3 jalapeños
• 1.5 onions
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup cilantro
• Seasoned with dried oregano, cumin, and salt and sugar

How to Can Salsa

Canning salsa is pretty easy if you have the right equipment. In addition to the ingredients, you’ll need a large stock pot or canning pot, a flat steamer rack to go in the pot for water bath canning, and 5 to 6 pint-sized canning jar with rings and lids.

To start, you’ll want to sterilize the jars and lids in a large pot of boiling water — the same pot you’ll use for water bath canning at the end of the recipe.

While you are heating the water to sterilize the jars, you can roast the chile peppers, and cook the tomatoes (blanch, grill, or broil). Once the chile peppers and tomatoes have been cooked and prepped, all of the salsa ingredients go into a large pot and simmered for 10 minutes.

Ladle the salsa into your sterilized canning jars, seal, and place in a water bath for 15 minutes.

Problem: Low Acid Foods – The trick to canning shelf-stable foods is the acidity. If you have the right amount of acidity, it creates an unpleasant environment for dangerous botulism bacteria to grow. When canning low acid foods such as green chiles, you need to either can them under pressure (using a pressure-canner), or if you use a simple water-bath canning process, add enough acidity to prevent bacteria from growing.

Solution: Vinegar – It is the vinegar in the salsa ingredients that make this salsa safe for canning using a water bath canning method. Tomatoes are already slightly acidic, and only need a little more acid to be safely canned using this method. But the chiles are not acidic, so they need more vinegar.

Note: If you pressure-can instead water bath canning, you can dial back the vinegar. And if you plan on eating the salsa right away, or freezing it, you won’t need as much vinegar either.

To balance the taste of the vinegar in the canning salsa, we add some sugar to the mix. This combination intensifies the flavor of the salsa and also helps the salsa from tasting too vinegary.

Have a Surplus of Tomatoes? Here Are More Recipes

• Fresh Tomato Salsa (Pico de Gallo)
• Basic Tomato Sauce
• Bruschetta with Tomato and Basil
• Homemade tomato juice
• Gazpacho

SAVE ITPRINT

Canned Tomato Salsa

PREP TIME30 minsCOOK TIME45 minsTOTAL TIME75 minsYIELD5 Pints

Before starting, prepare your workspace so that it is clean and uncluttered. If you don’t want to roast your own green chilies, you can sub with about two 7-ounce cans of green chilies, chopped.

This recipe uses specific amounts of ingredients, balancing the non-acidic ingredients with the amount of added acid needed to make the recipe safe. Do not increase the amount of green chilies beyond 1 1/2 cups, or decrease the amount of tomatoes less than 7 cups.

Ingredients

• 5 pounds of tomatoes
• 1 pound large Anaheim green chilies (5-6 chilies)
• 3 jalapeño chilies, seeded and stems removed, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup loosely packed fresh chopped cilantro (including stems)
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 to 2 tablespoons sugar or more (to taste, depending on how sweet your tomatoes are)

Method

1. Sterilize jars and lids in water bath:Place steamer rack in the bottom of a large (16-qt) stock pot or canning pot. Place new or clean mason jars on the rack. Fill the jars with water and fill the pot with just enough water to come to the top of the jars. Heat water to a simmer. Simmer for 10 minutes. (Keep the jars warm while preparing the salsa.)Have a kettle half filled with water ready to boil, to use to sterilize the jar lids a few minutes before canning.
2. Roast chili peppers:Roast the Anaheim green chili peppers until blackened all over. The best way to do this is directly over a gas flame on the stovetop (see how to roast chilies over a gas ,flame.) If you don’t have a gas stove you can broil the chilies, or blister them on a grill.Note that it is not essential that the chili peppers be cooked through, only that the outer tough skin is blistered and blackened. This is what will help with flavor. Also it will make it easy to peel the chilies.Just put the chilies near a heat source until blistered and blackened, and turn them so that they get blackened on all sides.Then place the chilies in a brown paper bag (or in a covered bowl), close the bag and let the chilies steam in their own heat for a few minutes.Then gently rub off the outer skin and discard. Cut away the stems and remove the seeds and any prominent veins.Chop up the chilies and set aside; you should have 1 cup of chopped chiles. Do not use more than 1 1/2 cups of chopped chilies.
3. Prepare the tomatoes:You want the tomatoes peeled, and there are several ways of doing that. Blanching them is easiest; grilling or broiling will result in more flavor.To blanch them, score the ends of the tomatoes and place them in boiling water for a minute.If you are going to grill or broil the tomatoes, I recommend coring them first. Grilling is best with whole plum tomatoes; grill them on high direct heat until blackened in parts and the peels are cracked.Broiling works with any sized tomato. Just cut them in half and place the cut side down on a rimmed baking sheet or roasting pan. Broil until the peels are blackened in parts.Remove the tomatoes (from water, grill or broiler) and let cool to the touch. Remove and discard the peels. Cut away any cores if you haven’t done so already. Chop the tomatoes taking care to save any juices that may come out of them.Starting with 5 pounds of tomatoes you should end up with about 8 cups of chopped tomatoes and juices. (You must use at least 7 cups of tomatoes.) Place them in a bowl and set aside.
4. Simmer all ingredients in a large pot:Put all of the ingredients into a large (8-qt) stainless steel pot. (Do not use aluminum or the acidity of the sauce will cause the aluminum to leach into the sauce.)Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Cook uncovered for about 10 minutes.
5. Sterilize jar lids:While the salsa is cooking, place the jar lids in a bowl and cover with boiling water to sterilize.
6. Blend salsa for a smooth consistency:If you want your salsa to be more smooth than chunky, use an immersion blender to pulse it a few times, or working in batches ladle about half of it into a blender and purée.
7. Adjust seasonings:If too acidic to taste, add more sugar to balance the vinegar! If too sweet, add a bit more vinegar.
8. Ladle salsa into canning jars and seal:Ladle salsa into canning jars, leaving 1/2-inch head space. Wipe the rims with a clean, dampened paper towel so that there is no residual food on the rims.Place canning lids on the jars. Screw on the lid rings. Do not over-tighten or you may not get a good seal. Air does need to escape from the jars during the next step, the water bath.
9. Boil in a water bath:Place the filled and lidded jars back onto the rack in the large stock-pot of hot water you used to sterilize the jars in step one. You may need to remove some of the water from the pot to prevent it from overfilling.Cover the jars with at least 1-inch of water. Bring to a rolling boil and process for 15 minutes (20 minutes for altitudes 1000 to 6000 ft, 25 minutes above 6000 ft). Then turn off heat and let the jars sit in the hot water for 5 minutes.
10. Let jars cool, lids should pop:Remove jars from the water bath and let sit on a counter for several hours until completely cool. The lids should “pop” as the cooling salsa creates a vacuum under the lid and the jars are sealed.If a lid has not sealed, either replace the lid and reprocess in a water bath for another 15 minutes, or store in the refrigerator and use within the next few days.Remember to label the cans with the date processed. (I use a Sharpie on the lid.) Canned salsa should be eaten within a year.