CS-015: Tricks to Making Great Salsa | Your Questions Answered

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Over the years I’ve tried making salsa many times, using many different recipe variants. I never really liked any of them. They were too hot, too mild, none were just right. Finally, I got it right! Today we’re going to talk about how I did it, how you can too. I’ll also answer a bunch of questions you’ve sent in.

In a future episode I’m going to walk you through making applesause. To get you ready, in today’s episode I introduce you to a tool I came across some seasons back that makes peeling, coring, and slicing the apples incredibly easy. It’s called the Norpro Apple Master. This affiliate link pictured below will take you to Amazon where you can get one for your very own. If you don’t already have one, you will thank me for this recommendation!

Today’s Main Event: How to Make Perfect Salsa

In today’s session on making salsa, I walk you through the following recipe I found on the Mrs. Wages website. I tried this past weekend with great success.

John’s Walk-Through of the original Carter’s Farm Blue Ribbon Salsa Recipe:

8 cups Roma tomatoes: I only had tomatoes from my garden with a much heavier water content than Roma’s. So I used 9-10 cups of them and boiled the mixture down for a good bit. Reducing the water is important as it allows the acidity of the lemon juice and vinegar to take full effect in this salsa mixture.

1 cup onions – I found this is about the equivalent to one medium onion so that’s what I used.
2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced. This was easy, just cut them down to the size you like.

1 Tbsp salt – I used Morton table salt as I wanted the added iodine in my diet. Canning or kosher salts would also work in this recipe as the salt is for flavor.

1 1/2 cups vinegar – I used white vinegar but I don’t think it would matter if you used cider vinegar instead so long as either had the same acidity level as is commonly found in store-bought vinegars. Do not use boutique vinegars here.

1/3 cup lemon juice – Again, only use commerically prepared juices here as you need to consistent acid levels. Do NOT use lemon juice from fresh lemons. I’ve seen some recipes use lime juice instead. I’ll bet that tastes pretty good too. If you use lime juice, make sure it’s got the same acidity as commerically available lemon juice.

2 cups green and jalapeno peppers, chopped – Since the recipe doesn’t specifiy proportions, in my version I used one cup of each.

1/3 cup chopped cilantro – Personally, I hate cilantro so not one leaf made it into my salsa!

Optional: This wasn’t in the recipe, but I added 1 teaspoon of ground black pepper.

The original recipe says,

“Combine all ingredients in a large saucepot. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner.”

This is what I did –

I put only the tomatoes into a stock pot first and brought them to a boil. I then used my immersion blender to break them up to a “crushed tomato” type of consistency. I then cut the garlic and peppers down to the size I wanted to eat in my salsa and added them to my tomato mix.

At this point I continued boiling until such time as the salsa had the consistency I personally found enjoyable. It was only at this point I added the vinegar, lemon juice, and salt to the mix.

I continued boiling the mix for another 10-15 minutes or so. My goal, again, was to reduce the mix down to a consitency I prefer. My method of testing was to use a tortilla chip. Once I liked it on the chip, boiling was done! .

The original recipe then says,

“Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner.”

I followed this portion of the recipe to the letter.

In the balance of today’s show I answered some of the questions you’ve submitted.

Before you go …

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