How much vinegar should I use when making Salsa?
My wife's boss makes some absolutely great salsa, so we got the recipe from her so that we could try our hand at it with our fresh garden veggies. The recipe is below:
Salsa
- 16 cup tomatoes, peeled and quartered
- 4 cups onions, chopped
- 2 cup jalapenos, chopped (
withwithout seeds) -- adjust this (1 1/4 cup, 1/2 of seeds used)- 2 1/2 cup white vinegar
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 c pickling salt
- 3 tsp garlic powder
- 1 1/2 T chili powder
- 2 tsp black pepper
- 2 T cumin seed
- 1 tsp alum
- 2 (6oz) cans tomato paste
Blend together and cook for 1 1/2 - 2 hours, uncovered. Put into hot sterilized jars; seal and process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Makes 8 pints
WARNING: When slicing jalapenos use rubber gloves and don't touch your eyes
Last summer I made 16 pints with this recipe, and it was basically inedible due to the overwhelming vinegar bitterness. We ran this back by her boss who gave us the recipe, and she said she really just wings it on the vinegar.
So my question is, for this recipe how much white vinegar should actually be used? We have our garden veggies ready for salsa making this weekend, and I really don't want to waste all of them again this year! Hope I can get some help on the vinegar part!
Best Answer
The guideline for the safe canning of tomatoes is for 2 tbsp of 5% vinegar per pint of tomatoes. If you made 16 pints then you'd need 32 tbsp of vinegar, and that is almost 2.5 cups. This isn't to prevent spoiling, the processing will do that, it's to prevent the growth of botulism, which boiling does not do.
However, the recipe above calls for 16 cups of tomatoes, 4 cups of onions and 2 cups of jalapenos, for a total of 22 cups of vegetables. That's 11 pints, not 16, so if you added 2.5 cups to that you've gone almost 50% over the amount you need, which could account for the strong acid flavor. For that volume 22 tbsp or 1.65 cups would be sufficient.
It's possible your wife's boss is adding vinegar until it tastes good, then canning the result. This isn't safe because it means there could be far less acidity than would be wise (I'm assuming that the boss is using a water bath method because that's what the recipe says, if she's using a pressure canner then it's a different story). If this is the case then this recipe will never really work as is because to make it taste right you'll have to compromise on food safety.
You have a couple of options here:
- Buy a pressure canner: you can probably ebay one for not much money, and it means you can get the flavor you want. Processing time is much shorter as well, giving you superior product (the guidelines for a water bath are 40-50 minutes, in a pressure canner it's just over 10)
- Try a different acid: citric acid powder adds acidity without much flavor. The guideline is 1/4 tsp per pint. Canning supply shops will carry it, it's easy to find on the internet. Lemon juice (commercially bottled for consistency) is also a favorite for salsas, 1 tbsp per pint is the guideline.
If you decide to change acids or acid levels then I suggest you do a small test batch to make sure it's good before going full scale.
A good page on canning tomato products is here.
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Quick Answer about "How much vinegar should I use when making Salsa?"
How much vinegar do I add to salsa?
on jars during processing, add \xbc cup vinegar per gallon of water used in the canner. Select tomatoes, peppers, spices, and onions. Always use fresh, firm, ripe tomatoes. The type of tomato will affect the consistency of salsa.Do you add vinegar to homemade salsa?
You must add acid to canned salsas because the natural acidity may not be high enough. Commonly used acids in home canning are vinegar and lemon juice. Lemon juice is more acidic than vinegar, but has less effect on flavor. Use only vinegar that is at least 5% acid and use only commercially bottled lemon juice.Can you add too much vinegar to canned salsa?
Add one fourth cup white sugar and reboil the pint jar. The sugar should cut down on the vinegar. Plus you might add some hot peppers, that is really good.How do you balance vinegar taste in salsa?
In this case just add a few more cut up tomatoes to your mixture and 1/2 a chile pepper. This should work for you. You can also change the taste of your salsa and stop the vinegar taste by adding a papaya to your salsa. Papaya in salsa is excellent and the sweetness of the papaya gets rid of the vinegar taste.Quick and Easy Salsa Recipe - Homemade Salsa From Scratch
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Answer 2
The 2 tbs vinegar per pint guide lines are for tomatoes. You are adding other ingredients that would change the PH of the tomatoes which is 4.9 to 5.2 so it would take more vinegar to get the PH level to the safe 4.0 PH level.
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