Preserve Your Tomato Harvest

By Nancy Noon

It seems like we are coming to the end of garden season; the gardens and farmers markets are overflowing with fresh tomatoes, onions and peppers. So much bounty at once, sometimes it is hard to deal with it all. In this case, any little bit you can do every day helps to preserve your harvest or your farmers market purchase for those winter months when you would do anything for a good tasting tomato!!

Here are a couple of recipes from tested sources for canning salsa:

Zesty Salsa

Makes about 12 8 ounce jars or 6 pint jars.

Ingredients

• 10 Cups chopped, cored, peeled tomatoes
• 5 cups chopped green peppers
• 5 cups chopped onions
• 2 ½ cups chopped seeded chili peppers such as hot banana, Hungarian wax, serrano or jalapeno
• 1 ¼ cups cider vinegar
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp finely chopped cilantro
• 1 Tbsp salt
• 1 tsp hot pepper sauce

Directions

1. Prepare canner, lids and jars
2. In a large, stainless steel saucepan, combine tomatoes, green peppers, onions, chili peppers, vinegar, garlic, cilantro, salt and hot pepper sauce. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat a boil gently, stirring frequently until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes. 
3. Ladle hot salsa into hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace. Wipe rim. Center lid on jar, Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to finger tip tight. 
4. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water (if using a boiling water bath canner) If using a steam canner, 3 quarts of simmering water. Process both 8 ounce jars and pints for 15 minutes. Remove canner lid. Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars. Cool and store. 

Recipe from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving.

Chile Salsa

Ingredients

• 5 pounds tomatoes
• 2 pounds assorted hot peppers
• 1 pound onions
• 1 cup vinegar (5%)
• 3 tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper

Directions

1. Peel, wash and dice onions. 
2. Dice peppers
3. Wash tomatoes and dip in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds. Dip in cold water, slip off skins and remove cores. 
4. Coarsely chop tomatoes and combine them with chopped peppers, onions, and remaining ingredients in a large saucepan.
5. Heat to boiling, then reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.
6. Fill hot salsa into hot jars, leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if necessary.
7. Wipe rims of jars, adjust lids. 
8. Process in a boiling water bath or steam canner for 15 minutes. 

Recipe from So Easy to Preserve, Cooperative Extension, University of Georgia.

Crushed Tomatoes

Wash tomatoes and dip in boiling water for 30-60 seconds or until skins split. Then dip in cold water, slip off skins and remove cores. Trim off any bruised or discolored portions and quarter. 

Heat about 1 pound of the quarters quickly in a large pot, crushing them with a spoon or potato masher as they are added to the pot. This will draw off some juice. Continue heating the tomatoes, stirring to prevent burning. Once the tomatoes are boiling, gradually add remaining quartered tomatoes, stirring constantly. These remaining tomatoes do not need to be crushed. They will soften with heating and stirring. Continue until all tomatoes are added. Then boil gently 5 minutes. Add bottled lemon juice (1 tbsp per pint, 2 tbsp per quart) or citric acid (1/4 tsp per pint, ½ tsp per quart). Add ½ tsp salt to each pint jar; 1 tsp to earch quart if desired. Fill hot jars with hot tomatoes, leaving ½ inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Adjust lids and process. 

Boiling water bath or steam canner: Pints, 35 minutes, Quarts 45 minutes 

Pressure Canner at 10 pounds pressure: Pints or Quarts 15 minutes. 

Recipe from So Easy to Preserve.

You can also make your favorite sauce recipe, and freeze it. Sauce freezes beautifully. 

If you want to can sauce, you will need to use a tested recipe.

Here are some favorites:

https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can/how-do-i-can-tomatoes/spaghetti-sauce-without-meat/

https://www.healthycanning.com/roasted-marinara-sauce

Of course, if you have no time to deal with tomatoes now, you can freeze them until you have time. Just wash, core, and store in gallon bags in your freezer. When they are thawed, the skins slip right off. These are best used for crushed tomatoes, or sauce, as the texture becomes a bit too soft for salsas.