Updated – July 30, 2020
We hosted a canning class taught by Marisa McClellan of Food in Jars. The hands-on canning class, at Fillmore Container, focused on tomato salsa. Marisa talked about the basics of preserving tomatoes including the importance of acidification when preserving tomatoes.
The Tomato Preserving Guidelines from Penn State Extension offer some very helpful information about working with tomatoes and includes a variety of preserving recipes including, Spaghetti Sauce with Meat, Standard Tomato Ketchup, and Barbecue Sauce.
In addition to the basic tomato salsa recipe for preserving below, we also like making this Choice Salsa Recipe because the recipe allows you to can salsa safely using varied ingredients. We also have a round-up of Salsa recipes here, and other tomato-based preserving recipes here.
Yield – 8 pints
You’ll see from our pictures that we doubled this recipe during the class, and we also used 8oz. jars, so that everyone could take home a jar.
If I made fresh salsa—I would NOT put vinegar in it. I don’t cook the tomatoes either. I just think the canned salsa is disappointing.
These recipes are for canning and the acid is necessary for safe preserving using a water bath canning method. For fresh salsa, I just add a little lime juice. You should try home canned salsa. It’s so much better than the store-bought.
awesome recipe!!