Tag Archives: canning picante

Picante Salsa – Fresh Or Canned

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We definitely need more than two rows of picante and salsa in the pantry canning cabinet for this year!

A big bowl of Roma’s waiting to be made into picante salsa

We dice up the roma’s – skins and all into 3/4 in ch to 1 inch pieces and fill the stock pot.

A big bowl of diced tomatoes cooking down

Cooked tomato being strained through a mesh sleeve to remove skins

Minced onion, garlic, peppers chopped up in the food processor

There is nothing better than home made salsa or picante. Each of our kids, family and friends prefer it a different way – some mild, some medium and some hot – so we make and can it all three ways. But one thing is for sure – they all love it and we go through a ton of it throughout the year. I think what I like most about this recipe is that it tastes so fresh coming out of the jar. So many canned salsas we have tried and canned just had a flat, overcooked taste to them. With this – we open up a jar – chop up a little fresh cilantro – and it’s like you’re in the garden again!

So here is a really straightforward and simple way to make some great tasting picante salsa in no time at all. It usually takes us about 2 1/2 to 3 hours of real-time to can a batch – but we are only truly working at it for about 25 to 30 minutes of that time – and are free to do other chores around the house.This recipe will make enough for about 8 to 10 pint jars.

As for mild or medium or hot – that is really to personal preference – but I can tell you that we use no hot peppers for the mild – 1/2 of the amount for medium, and all of the amount for hot.

Here are the ingredients and steps:

MILD INGREDIENTS:
40 to 50 Roma Tomatoes
4 Green Bell Peppers
8 Cloves of Garlic
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro
3 Sweet Red Peppers
4 Medium White or Yellow Onions
2 Tablespoons Garlic Salt
1 Tablespoon of Black Pepper
1 to 2 teaspoons of Salt
2 Limes
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

HOT INGREDIENTS :
NOTE : Use 1/2 for medium heat – ALL for Hot – we use a variety of hot peppers to add more depth of flavor – if you want – you can just use 5 jalapeno’s for medium heat and 10 for hot
4 Jalapeno Peppers – seeds and all
6 Cajun Belle Peppers
3 Tequila Sunrise peppers
2 Serrano Peppers

STEP 1 (10 minutes) We start with about 40 to 50 washed Roma tomatoes – We cut the ends off and dice them up into small 1/2 to 1 inch chunks – skins and all. We will fill a 6 to 8 qt stock pot – add in 1/4 of the cup of apple cider vinegar and put them on low to medium-low heat to cook down.

STEP 2 (10 minutes) While the pot full of tomatoes is heating slowly and cooking down (we will stir it about every 10 minutes or so) – we take all of the other ingredients listed above – in no particular order – and dice into a fine liquidy chop in our food processor. We also add the juice from the two limes and the other 1/4 cup of vinegar to the mix. We place it all in a large Tupperware bowl – put the lid on it and set it to the side.

Step 3 (1 minute) After an hour or so – when the tomatoes first start to break down – we take our immersion blender into the stock pot and blend it all together – it speeds up the cooking down of the tomatoes.

Step 4 (1 minute) After another 20 minutes or so – when the tomatoes are really heated up and breaking down – we take the immersion blender one final time into the stock pot and blend together.

Step 5 (5 minutes) Using a small mesh strainer bowl – we then shake through the contents of the tomato plan into another stock pan – it leaves behind all of the skins and most all of the seeds – and leaves us with some good pulpy tomato stock to start our picante salsa with. You could also use a mill grinder at this point – the strainer bowl has always seemed faster for us.

Picante Salsa!

Step 6 Dump in all of the ingredients you have in the Tupperware bowl and let it all heat through for another 30 or so minutes to a slow boil

Step 7(5 minutes) Ladle into clean pint jars – and pressure cook at 10 lbs. of pressure for 18 minutes. You could also choose to water bath at this point for 45 minutes – we just find that it is so much easier to pressure can.

After that – your all set! When we do open up a jar to use – a lot of times we will chop up a little fresh cilantro and maybe a chopped sweet pepper or onion to add even more freshness to the picante.

Happy Canning!

Jim and Mary

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Picante Salsa Recipe – Great Fresh or Canned!

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Our Home Made Picante Salsa – A Summer Harvest In Every Jar

We eat a ton of salsa and picante in our household.   Now let me first start by saying you can find a million explanations on the web for the difference between salsa and picante – but in a nutshell, salsa is simply the chunkier version of that great chip dip made up of a base of  tomatoes, onion, peppers – while picante is the smoother blended version of the same ingredients.  Picante is usually regarded to be a hotter version – but I have eaten both mild and hot versions of both – so that explanation always confused me.

Picante is a great way to utilize all those fresh tomatoes from the garden!

The simple fact is  -  we love them both! In fact – everyone in the house loves them both – and we go through a lot of it!  Although nothing beats that fresh “made from the garden salsa” – we have always been a little disappointed in what happens to that great fresh taste once it’s canned. So last summer, we began to experiment with different recipes to see what we could create that would taste the same fresh or canned – and came up with this picante recipe.

I noticed yesterday as I reached for a jar that we only have 7 on the canning shelf left –  so I think will be increasing the picante canning a little more this summer!

Here is both the simple fresh recipe – and our canning recipe for our version of picante salsa

The Ingredients :

8 peeled medium tomatoes.  A paste variety is the best – (roma, etc.)

2 Green Peppers  ( we also use a few of the cajun belle peppers in ours to add extra flavor)

1 to 2 jalapeno’s with seeds (if you want mild – skip the jalapeno’s)

1 large Vidalia onion

1/4 cup of chopped cilantro

1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon of pepper

1/8 cup of lime juice

1 ½ teaspoons of garlic salt

3 garlic cloves

Fresh: Simple place all of your ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth in texture and then refrigerate.  Garnish with a little bit of finely chopped cilantro and onion for an added extra  Fresh picante will keep for around a week or so in the refrigerator.

To Can: The above recipe will make around 2 to 3 half pint jars  - so we usually just multiply the ingredients x4 to can a dozen at a time.  Simply process the ingredients the same way and add to a large pot.  Bring to  a very slow boil and let simmer for an hour.  Then simply jar up and stick in your pressure canner for 15 minutes – or water bath for 40 minutes – and you have access to home-made year round picante salsa!