Super Simple Salsa for Canning

When grandma ordered 40 lbs of tomatoes for me I knew one of the items I had to make was salsa, but I didn’t want to spend forever fine chopping ingredients. For this recipe you only need to do a big chop on the veggies and pulse them in a food processor. So easy! Cider vinegar gives the salsa sweetness, but white vinegar would be fine, too. 5 jalapeños made a relatively mild batch of salsa, so if you like it spicy I would double it.

Update 7/2016- I’ve gotten a few comments about how vinegary this salsa is. It is! I enjoy this flavor but I can see how some would not. Last week when I made my usual batch, I made an additional batch with some modifications that I think many of you would prefer, so that is the recipe you will find below. 🙂 There is less vinegar and the addition of sugar.

Ingredients
13 cups of peeled, pulsed tomatoes (about 8 pounds)
5 bell peppers (I used red and green)
5 large white onions, quartered
5 large jalapenos (more if you like it very spicy), halved and deseeded
2 bunches of cilantro leaves, torn up.
6 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped roughly
1 6oz can tomato paste
1 cup of cider vinegar (cider vinegar is what I prefer because I think it has a sweeter taste, but you can absolutely use white! Original recipe called for 2 cups of cider vinegar)
1/2 cup brown sugar (Original recipe called for no sugar. To make the original recipe, do not add sugar.)
3 tsp salt

Yields about 9 pints

Directions:
1. Blanch the tomatoes by cutting a little x on the bottom, dropping them into boiling water for about 20 seconds, and placing them in ice water. The skins should peel off easily. Quarter them, removing any stems or pithy cores, and pulse them in a food processor until chunky. Transfer to a large stock pot.

Here is my blanching station and my finished tomatoes.

2. Quarter and deseed the bell peppers. Pulse them in the food processor until chunky. Transfer to the pot.

3. Place half of the onions in the food processor. Add the cilantro. Pulse until the onions are relatively small chopped and there aren’t huge chunks of cilantro left. Transfer to the pot. Put the remaining onions, garlic, and jalapenos in the food processor and pulse until they reach the same chop as the previous batch of onions. Add to pot.

4. Add the tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, and salt to the pot. Bring to a simmer and cook for an hour until the mixture has thickened. Stir every 6 minutes. Do not let it burn! Taste to check for seasoning.

5. Ladle into hot jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace, wipe the rims for any spillage, and process in boiling water for 15 minutes. Leave on counter untouched for one day, check for proper sealing.