Easy Almost Homemade Salsa for Canning

Let’s be honest! I think I could eat Mexican style cuisine about 4-5 times and week, and I wouldn’t miss a beat. But salsa from the store can get pricey. I have found it so worth it to make salsa at home. And now is the perfect time of year to make this easy almost homemade salsa for canning.

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Homemade Salsa for Canning

When I first starting canning salsa, I tried several completely from scratch salsa recipes. I would spend hours chopping up all these fresh ingredients. But then the results would be almost tasteless and the consistency runny. It about broke my canning spirit! While I’m still on the search for the perfect, completely from scratch, recipe, I have discovered a recipe that is ten times easier.

My easy almost homemade salsa for canning recipe is super simple and uses a store bought seasoning packet. With a few of my tweaks you will be canning salsa for your family and friends like a pro!

WATCH my video of all my canning salsa tips here!

Canning Tools for Homemade Salsa

When canning, you first want to have a few canning tools on hand. You don’t need to go hog wild, but you will want to have the essentials. You will need jars. Pint jars work best for salsa. Unless, you have a very large family, pint jars are the perfect size for salsa. It is enough for several meals, but not too large, like a quart jar where the salsa may get pushed to the back of the fridge and go bad. Nothing worst then cleaning the fridge and discovering that someone took a tiny bit from the jar and then shoved it to the back, only to open another jar! Argh!

I like this canning supply kit for beginners.

If you are new to canning, get a basic set of jars to get you going and then ask your friends if they have any jars lying around they don’t want any more. Picking up jars at yard sales is also another smart way to acquire canning jars.

Next, you will need canning lids and rings. Canning lids always have to be brand new in order to properly seal. You can reuse rings over and over each season. When purchasing your tools for canning, you’ll want double the amount of canning lids as canning rings.

You will need a large canning pot, to process the jarred salsa for sealing. For this recipe, you will be doing a water bath, which I will explain later. So you don’t have to use a pressure cooker, just a big pot. But if you have a pressure cooker, it will still work perfectly, as it is so large and meant to have jars placed in it.

A few other tools, to look into investing, are a canning jar lifter and a funnel. A canning jar lifter allows you to lift jars out of the hot water bath. They look like tongs and safely grasp jars so that you are not getting burned moving the sealed jars out of the hot water. And a wide mouth funnel, makes pouring your prepared salsa into the sterilized jars a snap! If you are on a tight budget, definitely make sure to purchase a wide mouth funnel first!

Steps to Making Homemade Salsa for Canning

Now, we are going to go over the basic steps to making homemade salsa for canning using fresh tomatoes. You will find the ingredient amounts listed below in the handy printable recipe.

• First, select fresh tomatoes. Many people like the taste of Roma tomatoes for salsa. Roma can be a good option as they are easy to grow and tend to be plentiful during harvest time. However, they are smaller which means you will be slicing and dicing up more of them!

While I prefer to use a mixture of Roma plus whatever bigger tomatoes are growing in my garden (or my mother-in-law’s garden), I’ll just use what I have! The tomatoes you have grown or free tomatoes are always the best kind, at the end of the day!:)

• Next, collect all your jars and rings. Put in dishwasher and run through a short cycle, so that they are good and clean and ready by time your salsa is done. You can sterilize jars by either placing jars in boiling water or by placing on a rimmed baking sheet, open side up and placing in an 210F oven for 15 minutes.

• Thirdly, set a pot on stovetop with water to boil. Plus, get out a bowl and fill to top with very cold water. Quickly wash any dirt off your tomatoes. The skins will be taken off so you don’t have to scrub them into a inch of their life, you just want to get rid of any excess dirt from the garden.

• Once water is boiling, carefully place 5-6 tomatoes into the simmering/boiling hot water. Allow to float in hot water for about a minute. Then, using tongs, pull the tomatoes from the hot water and place in cold water. While the tomatoes cool a minutes, get your next station ready. You’ll need a cutting board, big measuring cup, small paring knife and a wastebasket of some sort. Pull the tomatoes from the cold water, all at the same time, so they don’t get water logged. Allow them to cool a minute before touching.

• Go ahead and pick out 5-6 more tomatoes to put into the hot water. While they are in the hot water, start to cut up the cooled tomatoes. Pull the skins off the tomatoes. They should come off easily. Cut out core from tomatoes. Throw away the tomato skins and center into the trash. I tend to just have a plastic grocery bag, on the counter, right by me so I can easily discard the skins and core without too much movement.

• Once you get everything started, you should have an assembly line where the tomatoes go into the hot water, cold water, skinned and cored, diced and then into the measuring bowl or cup. If you have older children, you can set them to carefully moving the tomatoes into the hot water, then into the cold water, so you can focus on chopping! But obviously make sure that your child or helper is old enough to work carefully around the hot water.

• After tomatoes are all chopped (and you sat down to rest your feet and have some sweet tea:) put your diced tomatoes into a large pot on stovetop. You’ll be ready to add your seasoning packet. I use Mrs. Wages 4 oz seasoning packet. To make my recipe taste more like completely from scratch, I always use way more tomatoes then the packet says. If it says use 18 medium tomatoes or 10 cups of diced, I tend to use 27 medium tomatoes or 15 cups of diced tomatoes. I find the taste is more fresh from the garden tasting and less like just seasoning.

One more trick, before I pour my tomatoes into the pot, I drain them. If you are using Roma tomatoes, you will have a LOT of juice sitting in your measuring cups. Try to drain out as much juice as possible if you want a more store bought salsa consistency. If you like a thinner consistency then you can leave the juice in. Just remember, as the salsa boils and simmers it will create more juice, so whatever you start with in the pot will become thinner. Don’t stress over this step too much. Your homemade canned salsa will taste delicious!

How to Can Homemade Salsa

• Bring your tomatoes, seasoning packet and vinegar to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes. Then your salsa is ready to ladle into your sterilized jars. Pour your salsa into the pint jars. Leave about 1/2 inch of space at the top of the jars. BEFORE putting on lids, wipe down the top of the jars with a clean paper towel to make sure their is nothing between the seal and the glass lip on the canning jar. Screw on rings.

• Now you can either freeze your salsa by simply allowing the jars to cool and then storing them in the freezer. If you are only making 1 batch of salsa and this is your first time, freezing salsa can be a great option. You can even choose to measure into quart size freezer bags and seal. Get all the air out of the freezer bags and then lay the filled quart freezer bags flat on a cookie sheet. Place cookie sheet in the freezer. Allow the salsa to freezer, before removing the cookie sheet. Then you can easily store the frozen salsa bags flat in the freezer!

• If you choose to can the salsa, you will use the “water bath canning” method. This is an easy method by which you cover the jars in water and boil then for an allotted time. You will need a large pressure cooker or extra large pot for your water bath canning. Put canning pot on stovetop and fill pot with several inches of water. Add all your filled and sealed canning jars. Then add water until it covers all the jars by an inch or two.

Also make sure that you have some kind of rack on the bottom of your pot. If you have a pressure canner, then it should already have one. If you don’t you can use a wire cake rack or a metal trivet. You are trying to allow air to circulate around the jars.

• Loosely cover your pot with lid. DO NOT SEAL LID. Bring water to a boil. Once the water is boiling, turn the heat back a little til you have a gentle boil. Set timer for 40 minutes. Once the 40 minutes are up, turn off heat, remove lid and allow the heat to escape and the jars to cool a little (15-20 minutes). You don’t want any sudden temperature changes that might make your glass jars crack. Then pull jars out one by one using your canning jar lifter. Place jars on the dishtowel on the counter to cool completely.

Tips for Making Canned Homemade Salsa

I know I just gave you a lot of information to remember so here is an abbreviated run down of all my canning salsa tips and tricks.

• Roma tomatoes work well, but any homegrown tomato will do the trick.
• You don’t need all the canning tools, but you do need a big pot, tongs, rings, jars and lids.
• Sterilize jars and lids before using. Running them through the dishwasher works well!
• Never reuse canning lids. You can reuse canning rings and jars, but not canning lids.
• Do make sure that the lip of the glass canning jar is wiped clean before sealing with new lid and ring.
• If you decide to freeze salsa, cool slightly, ladle into freezer quart bags, then freeze flat on cookie sheet.
• Canning using the water canning bath method is simply covering the jars with water and boiling. No pressure canner required, though a pressure canner works great for the water bath.
• Do make sure there is some kind of wire rack in the bottom of the water bath to keep air circulating around the jars.
• Lastly, display your beautiful homemade salsa in the pantry or on a shelf out of direct sunlight! Enjoy!