This home-canned tomatillo salsa gets a rich sweet depth of flavour from a blend of sweet and hot peppers, which are both roasted. Fresh parsley and fresh coriander (aka cilantro) are added to lighten the taste. White wine vinegar and lime juice provide an interesting, lively acidity to the taste.
This recipe comes from the Canadian Living home canning book (2012) and has been lab-tested by them to meet Bernardin / USDA safety standards.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 8 x quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 20 minutes
Tomatillo Salsa
Ingredients
- 4 green peppers (sweet, such as bell)
- 6 jalapeno peppers
- 1 kg tomatillos fresh, chopped. 6 cups / 2 lbs. Measured after prep)
- 350 g onion (chopped, white. 2 cups / ¾ lb. Measured after prep)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 150 ml white wine vinegar (5% or higher. ⅔ cup / 5 oz)
- 1 tablespoon salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 50 g coriander (aka cilantro. Finely chopped fresh. About ¾ cup packed. 2 oz.)
- 10 g parsley (fresh, finely chopped. ½ cup / .5 oz)
- 4 tablespoons lime juice (60 ml / 2 oz)
Instructions
- Start heating oven to 240 C / 475 F.
- Get a large, rimmed baking sheet and line it with tin foil. Don't grease or spray. Set aside.
- Wash, stem and seed all the peppers.
- Place on baking sheet cut side down.
- Bake until charred -- about 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, remove and discard the husks from the tomatillos. Wash well.
- Chop the tomatillos, add to large pot.
- Add the ingredients down to and including the black pepper to the pot.
- Wash and chop the cilantro and the parsley, set aside.
- When peppers are done, remove from oven, and let cool until peppers can be safely handled.
- Chop peppers and add to pot.
- Turn stove top heat on, and bring pot to a boil, covered.
- Then lower the heat to medium, and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Uncover the pot, and let simmer until it thickens with a lot of the water driven off -- about 30 minutes.
- Add cilantro, parsley, lime juice. Stir.
- Simmer 3 more minutes to heat through.
- Ladle hot salsa into hot jars.
- Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process jars for 20 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
For salt substitute, Herbamare Sodium-Free was used as it is non-bitter and non-clouding.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
Recipe notes
- Instead of white wine vinegar, you could just use white vinegar (5% or higher);
- Instead of 4 cloves of garlic, you can use 2 teaspoons of minced garlic from an oil-free bottle of minced garlic.
Recipe source
- Canadian Living Test Kitchen. The Complete Preserving Book. Montreal, Canada: Transcontinental Books. 2012. Page 202.
All Canadian Living home canning recipes are lab-tested for quality and safety.
Modifications:
- The recipe says to roast the peppers whole and unseeded, but it’s very fiddly to fish the seeds out afterward. Seeding them first saves a ton of prep time;
- Reduced salt from 3.5 teaspoons down to just 3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) for less fiddly measurement.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 2 tablespoons
- 11 calories, 144 mg sodium
Salt-free
Per 2 tablespoons
- 11 calories, 36 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
Pepperboi
Hello Healthy Canning,
Would it be safe to substitute “New Mexico style” chilies like roasted/peeled Anaheim for the bell peppers? Any idea on the weight of the peppers in this recipe?
Could 2 Serrano peppers be safely substituted for the 6 jalapeños?
Thank you
Healthy Canning
Yes a pepper substitution would be fine, in the same amounts. An average jalapeno pepper weighs about 15 to 25 g (.5 oz to 1 oz), whole, with stem and seeds in.
Irene
Hello! I have a question. If I don’t have enough tomatillos can I use green cherry tomatoes in their place?
Healthy Canning
Tomatillos are more theoretically more acidic then green tomatoes, so in using green tomatoes you’d be lowering the acidity which is a no-no for home canning recipe substitutes. So we aren’t sure what to say: you could contact Canadian Living via their website and ask them. Cite the recipe information given in the Source info section so they know what you are referring to.