Hello! First time poster, long time lurker. 🙂
I snagged a crate of Roma tomatoes at the last farmer’s market and made salsa in hopes of canning it and giving it as holiday gifts. As I did my research, I’m starting to think that I potentially made a mistake and now I’m freaking out.
I made a triple batch of the [Meat Church Smoked Salsa](https://www.meatchurch.com/blogs/recipes/smoked-salsa) (if you have a Traeger/smoker and haven’t made this, you’re missing out!) yesterday and plan on canning it today. As I did my research, I started seeing that only certain salsa recipes are “approved” to can. Now I’m scared that I’m sitting on gallons of “un-cannable” salsa.
So, I guess my question is if anyone has had experience with canning smoked salsa? Should I go ahead and can it or should I cut my losses? My grandmother canned nearly everything under the sun (she grew up on a farm) and I don’t recall if she used a “safe and tested” recipe or if she just used the grandma magic.
by beeeeeethany
7 Comments
Hey there! Ok, let’s start from the beginning. Can you share what recipe you used for the salsa? There is some wiggle room in tested recipes, believe it or not, and it has to do with being allowed to use *less* of a low-acid ingredient, like onions.
If you can share the *exact* recipe you followed, we can help you by seeing if there is a tested recipe that might work in your case.
Chances are you’ll be OK by adding vinegar, lime juice or citric acid. But you’ll need to find a similar tested recipe to figure out how much to add. Personally, I like to add lime juice to my Chipotle salsa, which of course is smoked. Good luck
You might laugh at this, but I legit just made this exact recipe and canned it two days ago. It’s so good fresh so I wanted to can a few jars. After reading a ton of these posts I poured it out and decided to remake it with an approved recipe. I didn’t realize the risks.
That said, I’m following this post closely as I’m brand new to canning and love this recipe.
Most recipes call for bottled lemon/lime juice because it has uniform acidity. With the fresh limes, you can’t really know what the Ph is. Add that to the fact that tomatoes are borderline acidic, and I’d be wary of canning this. Suggest freezing.
What I have done in the past is take an approved recipe and smoked the ingredients before canning. Absolutely delicious.
I’ve used approved salsa recipes and smoked the veggies prior to making and canning.
Since it’s a blended salsa the appropriate amount of acid added to each jar would make it safe. Finding a recipe with a same or less ratio of tomatos to peppers/onions/garlic and use the amount it gives.