The BEST homemade salsa for canning. Have fresh tomatoes? Then you’ll want to make this salsa, either hot or mild. It’s so delicious and inexpensive to make!
I wish I could invite all of you over to my house so you could have a bite of this homemade salsa for canning. It might be one of the best things that’s ever come out of my kitchen.
My mother-in-law brought me 75 pounds of tomatoes last week… which sounded really good until I saw exactly how many tomatoes 75 pounds really is. I naively thought I could make salsa, homemade tomato sauce and canned diced tomatoes in a single afternoon, which turned into 2 days of non-stop salsa making.
The hours are worth it. I’m currently looking at 60 jars of salsa in my kitchen, of which my husband has already gone through 3 of them in a week. Oh yeah, this salsa is drinkable.
I’m writing this recipe as one to be canned, but you don’t need to. It will make a lot of salsa but you could also pour it into jars and gift it to friends without canning. However– don’t be intimidated by the canning process. It couldn’t be simpler and you don’t need any fancy equipment to do it.
For this salsa canning recipe you’ll need the following:
Prepping all of your ingredients first will make canning salsa much easier in the long-run. The only difficult thing is removing the skins from the tomatoes ahead of time. If you are making a hot salsa, then I highly recommend using gloves when chopping the hot peppers.
You’ll need to first remove the tomato skin before you chop your tomatoes. This is essential in order to make this salsa recipe safe for canning.
To do this, make an “X” in the bottom of the tomatoes, then place in boiling water for 60 seconds. Then, remove the tomatoes from the water and place directly into a bowl if iced water to shock. The skins should slip right off. (I use my spider to transfer the tomatoes from the boiling water to the ice water without getting splashed.)
If you are new to canning tomatoes, I have a step-by-step guide for how to peel tomatoes.
Once your tomatoes are peeled, it’s time to chop them. To make things easier, you can use your food processor. I did one batch chopping everything by hand and one roughly chopping using the food processor and they results were really similar. If you want your salsa to have more texture, then I recommend chopping the tomatoes by hand and using the food processor for everything else.
Put all of your ingredients into a large stock pan and simmer for at least 30 minutes until it thickens. I highly recommend grabbing a few spoonfuls and enjoying it with chips while it cooks.
Pour salsa into clean jars. I use a funnel to keep things clean, but make sure you wipe the top of the jar before putting the tops on. Place the tops on the jars and seal to close.
Place the filled jars into a hot water bath and process for 30 minutes, ensuring the jars are submerged in hot water the entire time.
Carefully remove the jars from the hot water bath canner and place on a rack or a kitchen towel until cool to the touch. (I use these tongs to make things easier and I highly recommend them if you are going to can. It makes things a lot easier!)
It’s a little bit of work upfront, but the results for this homemade salsa are so worth it. Plus, good salsa is ridiculously expensive and if you can make your own for just a dollar or two a jar, it’s worth it!
Store cooled homemade salsa in a dark place, like a pantry, for up to 18 months.
When choosing tomatoes for canning salsa, you’ll ideally want to choose paste tomatoes. Paste tomatoes are more fleshy and therefore contain less juice and fewer seeds than other types of tomatoes, which makes them perfect for salsa.
Paste tomatoes are also ideal when making homemade canned tomato sauce.
The most popular types of tomatoes for salsa:
All that said, the best type of tomatoes are whatever tomatoes you have on hand! Ask your local farmer’s market or local farm if they have canning tomatoes, or uglies! The uglies are what most tomato farmers sell for dirt cheap- they are ugly, misshapen tomatoes that are perfect for salsa making.
If your tomatoes are very watery, it’s OK! Just remove some of the seeds before chopping for a less watery salsa.
Yes. This recipe was developed by a Master Canner and has been in my husband’s family for 40 years. It has also been verified by the OSU Home Food Preservation center.
You cannot add in more peppers, but you can substitute the type of peppers. This salsa recipe for canning uses 2 1/2 cups of chopped bell peppers along with 3-4 medium jalapeños. If you want more heat, then I recommend subbing in some of the chopped bell peppers for spicier peppers. When I make this hot, I usually add 2 cups chopped bell peppers and 1/2 cup of chopped jalapeños.
Yes, you can use bottled lemon juice instead of vinegar for this recipe in the same amount. Fresh lemon or fresh lime juice is not pH standardized and therefore cannot be used in this recipe, but bottled lemon is safe. However, as you can see from the comments, even if you don’t think you like vinegar in your salsa it really doesn’t taste like vinegar! I love the original version posted here and recommend it, but bottled lemon juice is also OK.
Yes, salt does not affect pH levels so you are welcome to use less salt than written here.
You can add dried cilantro to this salsa canning recipe if you’d like. However, I’d recommend instead adding in fresh cilantro when you go to serve this salsa recipe instead. Cooking the cilantro will lessen its flavor and make it darker and softer and may not be appealing in the canned salsa.
As written, this recipe will make ~7-8 pint jars of salsa. As long as you followed the ingredients and didn’t make substitutions, it’s OK if you get a little less. This will depend on how long you let the salsa cook for, how large your tomato chunks are and how watery your tomatoes are.
We love this homemade salsa as-is with tortilla chips, but it’s also fantastic stirred into my vegan queso, vegetarian bean chili, enchiladas and more.
If you like this best salsa recipe for canning, then you will love my Creamy Jalapeno Salsa, my Salsa Roja, Fresh Mango Salsa and my Black Bean and Mango Salsa!
Looking for more things to can? I recommend my Spaghetti Sauce for Canning and my post on How to Can Fresh Tomatoes.
If you make this recipe, come back to rate it and leave a comment. Seeing you make my recipes makes my day! You can also use the hashtag #delishknowledge on social media.
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The BEST homemade salsa for canning. Have fresh tomatoes? Then you’ll want to make this salsa, either hot or mild. It’s so delicious and inexpensive to make!
You can make this salsa as spicy or hot as you’d like. For a hot salsa, I use 4 Serrano (or habanero peppers) with the seeds. For a milder salsa, seed 1-2 of the jalapeños before chopping. For very mild salsa, seed all of the jalapeños. Remember that the heat will lessen as the salsa sits, so I tend to error on being spicy then not. It’s hard to correct spice level so if you don’t like things spicy, then start with only 1 jalapeño and go from there.
However, note that you can decrease the amount of jalapeños but you cannot increase for pH balance. If you prefer a very hot salsa, then you’ll want to sub in a hotter pepper for the jalapeños OR you can sub jalapeños for some of the green pepper.
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(998 comments) leave a comment
Easy to make and versatile. My family loves this recipe.
★★★★★
This is the pressure cooker that I have. It has a canning option on it which is why I exchanged my instant pot for it. Is this still no good for canning this salsa. It won’t let me post a photo. It’s a Power Pressure Cooker XL, Model PPC771. Thanks for your reply.
If you’re looking for a canning salsa recipe, this is your sign to stop… you’ve found it! My only regret with this salsa is not making more. This came out absolutely perfect and delicious. My mouth actually dropped the first time I tried it after canning… I couldn’t believe it tasted better than any restaurant or store-bought salsa I’ve tried, AND I knew exactly what went into it… which was nothing but healthiness and deliciousness. I wanted to use it for recipes that called for salsa like chicken tortilla soup or shredded chicken tacos, but it felt like a crime to waste this stuff on anything but straight up chips… That’s how good it is. Next year I’ll make at least 5x the amount so it gets me through the winter. Make it right now. You won’t regret it.
★★★★★
Since I am not able to put a water bath pot on my glass top stove, I was wondering if I can make this in an electric pressure cooker. How long do I set it at. Thanks so much. I have everything to make this on hand just need electric pressure cooker time.
Hi Debbie– the USDA states that it’s not safe to use an Instant Pot/pressure cooker for canning, but you can use a pressure canner for this recipe if you’d like. For that, I recommend (below 4000 ft) pressure can at 5 pounds pressure for 10 minutes.
The absolute best salsa recipe yet. I’m not a salsa fan usually but I crave this some days.
★★★★★
I have tons of canned tomatoes that I would love to use up for salsa… can you help me substitute???
Hi Kelly– I would make the recipe as is with the canned tomatoes. Canned tomatoes will have additional citric acid added to them, but because it can be tricky to calculate the pH based on ingredients alone, I’d recommend keeping the other amounts the same just in case.
Everyone says this is the best salsa they’ve ever had! Never again will I buy it from the store. Many thanks!
★★★★★
Since we’re in winter months, can canned diced tomatoes be used?
★★★★★
I haven’t done this, but others have with good results!
This is my first year having a big garden, and I was overwhelmed with tomatoes. This recipe is so easy and delicious! It is going right into my “Favorites” recipe card box! Thank you!!
★★★★★
Hi, I just made 1/2 a batch and was wondering how long it would be good for if kept in the fridge but no water bath canned? Is this possible?
Hi Sheila, yes– you can keep in the fridge for about a week without processing it. You can also freeze it!