Canning Salsa

I made my very first batch of salsa several years ago.  I didn't follow a recipe and it managed to turn out delicious.  After starting to can foods I have grown in the garden I've learned that if you are going to can salsa, you should follow a recipe that has been proven to have safe acidity levels if you want to trust what you eat out of a jar.  As usual I flipped through the Ball Book of Home Preserving until I found a recipe that I thought sounded good.  For this batch I used the recipe for Zesty salsa.

Here I have gathered some of the ingredients called for in the book.  I like to use up my cherry tomatoes in salsa when I can't keep up with eating them.  They make it sweet with out having to add any sugar.  I think I added a few more tomatoes, onions and peppers than I show in this picture.  It takes quite a few peppers to make the 5 cups called for in the recipe.

 

Ten cups of chopped tomatoes in the bottom of the pan.

 

Five cups of sweet peppers layered on the tomatoes.  I used both green and yellow sweet peppers.  I figure they both add a little something different to the finished product.

 

Five cups of onions on top of the sweet peppers.  I used both red and yellow onions for color and texture.  More colors look prettier in the jar. 

Last but not least are two and a half cups of chopped jalapenos.  It gets finished off with some apple cider vinegar and salt.  I usually like my salsa on the not too hot side, but I know many people that don't mind setting their mouth on fire when they eat salsa.  This is for them.  I didn't remove a single seed from these jalapenos, so this will be plenty spicy for me if I can tolerate it at all.  So far I could take the nibble I had before it was canned, but the flavors tend to come out more the longer it sits. 

 

The next day I added seven jars of spicy salsa to my shelf.  There would have been eight, but my canner only fit seven jars, and it had to be taste tested of course.  It was delicious.