Jars of salsa, do I have to boil the jars if they sealed on their own?

Wondering if I have to boil my homemade jars of salsa to seal them if they sealed on their own. (Yes I sterilized them before hand) The salsa went in hot and once the lid was on, about 5 minutes later there was the telltale pop!

IF this is safe, how long does something like homemade salsa and homemade sauces keep for in sealed jars?

Thanks! ~Andrea

canning salsa

Best Answer

Yes, you should fully process your salsa, even if you got the "hot jelly" seal just from hot packing.

The reason for this is that part of the processing is to ensure that the entire contents of the jar, all the way through, is at a high enough temperature for a long enough time to be safe as a shelf-stable product. This may or may not already be true from the initial cooking down, but in these matters, you absolutely positively want to be sure.

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Jars of salsa, do I have to boil the jars if they sealed on their own? - A Sliced Oranges Near the Glass Jars

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Do you have to boil jars after canning?

Heat from a proper canning process is needed to make sure any microorganisms in the jar of food are killed.\u201d

Can you can salsa without processing?

Yes, otherwise, if you can raw or fresh salsa, you will have to process it for a longer time than cooked salsa. This will take much longer, so it is better to cook the salsa before canning.

Can you seal salsa jars?

Let jars cool, lids should pop: Remove jars from the water bath and let sit on a counter for several hours until completely cool. The lids should "pop" as the cooling salsa creates a vacuum under the lid and the jars are sealed.

Does salsa have to be cooked before canning?

While they don't need to be sterilized, jars should be hot when filled so that the hot salsa goes in a hot jar which goes into the canner with hot water. Keeping everything the same temperature will prevent jars from cracking.

How to Jar/Preserve Homemade Salsa

More answers regarding jars of salsa, do I have to boil the jars if they sealed on their own?

Answer 2

All the books I have read on canning and preserving say that in order to safely process a non,or low acid fruit or veg ,you must pressure can it. They even go so far as to say that Tomatoes ,which have usually been the one "veg" you can hot -water bath, should be pressure canned ,because todays' market tomatoes are low acid. The best book I have found on storing food is called " Putting Food By" the book explains how and why to preserve food to get the best results, (I just checked, it's available at Amazon,an as a Kindle) but I borrowed my copy at the library. Another source of Good info is the Bernardin website, take care.

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