Chipolte Tomatillo Salsa is a rich, full-bodied smokey tasting salsa based on roasted tomatillos.
It’s relatively easy to make. Its chocolatey colour provides a nice contrast to green or red salsas at a party spread.
This recipe comes from the Ball All New book, 2016.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (1/2 US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x quarter-litre (1/2 US pint / 1 cup / 8 oz / 250 ml) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (1/2 inch)
Processing time: 25 minutes
Chipotle Tomatillo Salsa
Ingredients
- 1 kg tomatillos (2 lbs)
- 1 onion (small)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 4 tablespoons lime juice (fresh. 60 ml / 2 oz)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
- 3 to 4 chipotle chiles (canned)
Instructions
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Start heating oven to 220 C / 425 F.
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Get a large, rimmed baking sheet and line it with tin foil. Don't grease or spray. Set aside.
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Remove and discard the husks from the tomatillos. Wash well.
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Arrange tomatillos on baking sheet stem side down.
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Wash the onion, leave unpeeled. Cut into halves. Place on baking sheet cut side down.
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Leave garlic unpeeled. Add to baking sheet.
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Bake until tomatillos and onion are soft and begin to char -- about 20 minutes.
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Remove from oven, and let cool until onion can be safely handled.
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Put tomatillos in a food processor bowl.
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Peel the onion, discard the peel, add onion to food processor.
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Cut tips off garlic cloves, squeeze garlic out into food processor, discard the garlic peel.
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Add all remaining ingredients to food processor.
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Whiz until smooth; how smooth is down to you but you probably want to leave a bit of texture at least in it.
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Transfer to a pot, bring to a boil on the stove.
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Ladle hot salsa into hot jars.
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Leave 2 cm (1/2 inch) headspace.
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Debubble, adjust headspace.
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Wipe jar rims.
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Put lids on.
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Process in a water bath or steam canner.
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Process jars for 25 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
For salt substitute, Herbamare Sodium-Free was used as it is non-bitter and non-clouding.
Recipe notes
- 1 small onion = 40 g to 70 g ( 1.5 oz to 2.5 oz)
- Instead of 4 cloves of garlic, you can use 2 teaspoons of minced garlic from an oil-free bottle of minced garlic. Add it later instead of roasting it.
- Instead of fresh lime juice, you can use bottled. If using fresh, you’ll want 2 to 3 key limes.
- LIMES tip! Make your limes yield more juice by zapping them in the microwave, just until they feel warm on the outside. About 30 seconds in a 1200 watt microwave; your mileage will vary. But you will get a lot more juice out of your limes (and lemons) with this trick.
- For the chiplote peppers, they are after the ones that come in small tins in adobo sauce. You won’t need the whole tin; you can freeze the rest for another use later.
Recipe source
- Butcher, Meredith L., Ed. The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving. New York: Oxmoor House. 2016. Page 171.
Modifications:
- Added lined baking sheet;
- Cut onion in halves, not quarters, for baking so there is less surface to dry out;
- Roasted garlic unpeeled, as per normal procedure with it elsewhere in the cooking world, and to save on tin foil and futzing.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 2 tablespoons
- 14 calories, 36 mg sodium
Salt-free
Per 2 tablespoons
- 148 calories, 1 mg sodium
Hello, I was just stopping by here, because I’m about to make this recipe, and wanted to see what your recommended weights were for the ingredients here. I noticed you suggested 40-70g for a small onion, and that seems really REALLY small to me. I weighed what I think of as a small onion and it was something like 270g. Now, for this recipe I’ll probably be cautious and use something like a quarter of an onion for it, but it concerns me, because I made a different salsa recipe from Ball, earlier this year, that called for one small onion, so I don’t know. What do you think I should do? I was being very cautious when doing that recipe and used a fair amount of extra lime juice, because it seemed like it could maybe use more just based on my personal taste (big fan of lime). That was the salsa roja with ancho peppers, for what it’s worth.
Hi William, I see you are joining the club — people made nuts by canning recipe measurements.
First, I’ll say, if they really really care just exactly how small or medium an onion we use, then they should darn well tell us. Either in weight, or dimensions. But they don’t. The reason the recipe writers don’t is that there’s actually massive safety margins built in, so if you interpret a medium onion to be a small onion, or a large onion to be a medium, the pH meter on the recipe is barely going to move, if at all. So we really don’t have to overly sweat it. If it was THAT critical, they’d give us a precise measurement to start with. But the reason they won’t say “don’t sweat it” in public is that they know there are many people out there that, if you give them an inch, they’ll take a yard, and be tossing a world-champion 20 lb onion in, and then blaming the recipe company if anything goes wrong.
That aside, I really really wish some authority out there would say “here are the legal definitions of onion size.” I’d be all over that, save me thinking.
I googled small onion again, and yep, I’m seeing 40 to 70 g. When I first started thinking about onion sizes, and weights, I too remember being surprised at just how small an onion was that people called small. Maybe we’re just so used to supersized everything? See here for onion equivalents.
Thanks a lot! Just in general, your site has been really informative as I try to learn more about canning. I’m pretty amazed at 70g. That seems more like a pearl onion type size, which is not what I generally think of as a “small onion.” In fact, I chopped up a large onion, and 70g was less than a quarter of it. Maybe even 1/8. I did send a query to Jarden with the same question. I guess I will just try to not wait for too long before using the ancho salsa, and not overdo the onion in the Tomatillo Chipotle, until I hear back from Jarden. Thanks again!
Just to follow up, I got a response to my inquiry from Mary Jo of Newell Brands. According to her, a small onion is about 4 oz (looks like about 113g), and a medium onion is about 8 oz (227g). That really is surprisingly small, but it seems a little closer to what I’d guess.
That’s great that you heard back so soon, I’m surprised! Thanks for letting me know. It would be nice if someone would standardize onion size definitions for sure lol. Hope you like the sauce!