Canning Homemade Salsa

Salsa is a staple in our house. Chuck eat’s the stuff almost every day. He really loves it over eggs in the morning, and I’m not going to stop him. After all, salsa is all vegetables, and we could use whatever help we can get in that department.

I don’t know why it never occurred to me to can my own salsa. I usually just made some fresh now and then for dinners and he would gladly eat the leftovers. This method still had me buying a jar of salsa almost every week, except when my mom was generous enough to give us a can of her homemade stuff. While there are plenty of really good, organic salsa’s out there, it is probably one of the easiest to produce at home.

We are on a quest to produce as much of our own food as possible so learning to make a home staple like this kind of important. The recipe I’m using here is my interpretation of my mom’s recipe since Chuck really enjoys it. The problem is recipes like this, that are made often are never written down in our house so there was a bit of guesswork in there. I encourage you to use this recipe as a base to create your own version and make it something you really love.

This recipe makes a medium-mild spiced salsa. We like it this way because it’s often used in breakfasts. For a spicier salsa add more jalapenos or use a spicier pepper, such as banana, Serrano, or habanero peppers. For a less spicy salsa use 2-3 fewer jalapenos. Another option is to remove the seeds from the jalapenos. The seeds tend to be where a lot of the spice concentrates.

For the canning process, I used the water bath canning method from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. For a quick reference, it requires a 15-minute processing.