Basic Canned Salsa

Reader Contribution by Tammy Kimbler
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Canning salsa can seem daunting when you read about how low-acidic foods pose all these food safety dangers. Sure, tomatoes are relatively safe to can, but what happens if you add peppers, hot chiles, onions and garlic to make salsa? If you follow the basic guidelines from the National Center for Home Food Preservation, you know you have a safe product.

The key, I’ve found, is to use a scale to weigh all your ingredients. This ensures that you have the right, safe ratio of acid and low-acid vegetables. There’s actually flexibility in these ingredients if you follow one simple rule – Don’t Change the Ratios! The ratio of acid vegetables to non-acid vegetables must remain the same. Also, the 5 percent acidity vinegar is required. You may change vinegar, but do not substitute lemon or lime juice. OK, that was two rules.

What you CAN do is change out the tomatoes for any kind of tomatoes or tomatillos (although paste-type tomatoes will give you the thickest salsa.) Peppers and chiles can be of any kind or flavor. You can use lots of garlic and a little onion, or lots of cilantro or none. This salsa could even be all yellow with yellow heirloom tomatoes, sweet peppers and yellow hot Hungarian chiles. Or make chile verde green salsa with green tomatoes or tomatillos and Hatch green chiles. My favorite is the all-black salsa with black krim tomatoes, black sweet peppers and black jalepenos. Cool!

Follow these rules and you’ll get a great tasting, safe canned salsa. Since this is a basic recipe, I’m making prep as simple as possible. You may peel the tomatoes if you wish, but here I am just coring them.  Get as fancy with prep as you like. Follow the usual precautions of properly hot water bath processing and checking your lids for a proper seal, and you’ll be just fine.

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