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!)
Ingredients for Canned Salsa
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.
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 heat the jars 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 for 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.
Vinegar Makes Salsa Safe to Can
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. 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
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 chiles beyond 1 1/2 cups, or decrease the amount of tomatoes less than 7 cups. Wash the lids in hot, soapy water. Dry well and set aside. Note that it is not essential that the chiles 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 chiles. Just put the chiles near a heat source until blistered and blackened, and turn them so that they get blackened on all sides. Then place the chiles in a brown paper bag (or in a covered bowl), close the bag and let the chiles 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 chiles and set aside; you should have 1 cup of chopped chiles. Do not use more than 1 1/2 cups of chopped chiles. 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. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Cook uncovered for about 10 minutes. Place the canning lids on the jars. Screw on the 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. Cover the jars with at least 1 inch of water. Bring to a rolling boil and process for 15 minutes (adjust for altitude, if needed: 20 minutes for altitudes 1000 to 6000 feet, 25 minutes above 6000 feet). Then turn off heat and let the jars sit in the hot water for 5 minutes. 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 1 year.
