How to Make Homemade Salsa for Canning

Serve homemade salsa with your favorite chips.

If you like homemade salsa but shy away from the vinegar taste in most home canned salsa, use a recipe that avoids vinegar. You can preserve the recipe in five pint-sized jars for gifts or to use at a later time. Double the recipe to serve a larger group at once.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• 10 cups chopped organic tomatoes
• 8 limes
• 2-3 jalapeno peppers
• 2 large green peppers
• 1 large onion
• 1/2 head of garlic
• 1 tbsp. cumin powder
• Salt
• Sterile pint canning jars
• Jar funnel
• Slotted spoon
• Water canner
• Jar grabber

1. Wash the tomatoes and cut off the stems. Leave the peel on the tomatoes.

2. Cut the tomato open and quickly run your finger through the seed pockets to remove most of the seeds. You don't have to get every last one out. Set the tomatoes in a strainer.

3. Chop the tomatoes with a knife or food processor. Place the tomatoes in a large stock pot.

4. Chop the onion and 1/2 head of garlic into fine pieces. Add them to the stock pot.

5. Chop enough jalapeno peppers to make 1/4 cup. If you want mild salsa, remove the seeds. For hot salsa, leave the seeds in the jalapenos. Add the jalapenos to the stock pot.

6. Chop 2 large green peppers and add them to the stock pot.

7. Add 1 tbsp. cumin powder and salt to taste. Bring the salsa to a boil.

8. Squeeze 3 tbsp. of lime juice into each sterilized pint jar. The lime juice is very important as it helps preserve the salsa.

9. Using a jar funnel and a slotted spoon put salsa into pint size jars. The slotted spoon allows you to drain excess liquid from the salsa.

10. Leave about 1/2 to 1 inch of space at the top of the jar. Make sure the jar rim is clean. Place sterilized lids on the jar and boil them in a water canner for 30 minutes.

11. Remove the jars of salsa from the boiling water with a jar grabber. Let them sit undisturbed overnight. Don't tighten the lids. Within a few hours the jars will begin to seal.

Tips & Warnings

• Sterilize your jars by boiling them in the canner or running them through the dishwasher before you begin, if they're not sterile already.