This home-canned salsa recipe is a great way for eggplant (aka aubergine) lovers to use up the eggplant from their garden or that they scored for a great deal at the market. It features eggplant, roasted red pepper, tomatoes and red wine vinegar.
This recipe comes from the Canadian Living home canning book (2012) and has been lab-tested by them to meet Bernardin / USDA safety standards.
Canadian Living says, “This salsa tastes great on chips, bread or Italian-style subs, and makes a nice addition to an antipasto plate.”
The recipe writers suggest letting this mellow in the jars for at least a week before sampling.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz) OR half-litre (US pint / 500 ml / 16 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 20 minutes
Eggplant Salsa
Ingredients
- 500 g eggplant (peeled, diced eggplant. 8 cups / 1 ¼ lbs. Measured after prep)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 400 g red pepper (roasted, peeled. 2 cups / 14 oz. Measured after prep)
- 1.2 kg tomato (peeled, seeded, chopped. 5 cups / 2.5 lbs. Measured after prep.)
- 3 cloves garlic
- 250 g onion (finely chopped. 1 ½ cups / 8 oz. Measured after prep)
- 1 ½ teaspoons fennel seeds
- 1 ½ teaspoons chile flakes
- 125 ml red wine vinegar (5% or higher. ½ cup / 4 oz)
- 1 ½ teaspoons oregano (dried)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Wash eggplant and peel.
- Dice eggplant to 1 cm (½ inch) pieces.
- Put in a bowl, mix with 2 teaspoons of the salt.
- Cover, let stand for 2 hours, toss occasionally as the liquid is drawn out of the eggplant.
- Meanwhile, prep (or purchase) the roasted red pepper; set aside.
- Prep the tomatoes; set aside.
- Squeeze out any excess moisture remaining in eggplant; discard liquid.
- Set eggplant aside.
- Wash, peel and mince the garlic; set aside.
- Wash, peel, chop the onion finely, measure; set aside.
- Put a large saucepan over medium heat. Heat dry for a minute or two.
- Add the fennel seed and hot pepper flakes, toast for a minute or until aroma is released.
- Add reserved eggplant, roasted pepper, tomato, garlic, onion.
- Add all remaining ingredients, stir.
- Cover pan, bring pan to a boil, then reduce heat to medium.
- Simmer covered for 10 minutes.
- Uncover, then simmer for around another 15 minutes, or until mixture has thickened a bit (not too much - remember, it will thicken more once cooled.) Stir periodically.
- Ladle hot salsa into hot jars.
- Leave 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process jars for 20 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Nutrition
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.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
Recipe notes
- Canadian Living suggests using red shepherd peppers when they are in season, and regular red bell peppers when they are not.
- You need to start with 700 g / 1.5 lbs of unpeeled eggplant. About 2 medium.
- You need to start with about 2 kg (5 lbs) of tomatoes
- Tip! You could prep the roasted red pepper the day before and just refrigerate it overnight, to save time on canning day.
- Tip! Not a fan of fennel seed? It’s just there as a seasoning and has no safety role. You can just omit, or use the same amount of another dry spice seed that you think might work flavour-wise.
Recipe source
Canadian Living Test Kitchen. The Complete Preserving Book. Montreal, Canada: Transcontinental Books. 2012. Page 207.
Modifications
- Reduced salt from 3.5 teaspoons down to just 3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) for less fiddly measurement.
Safety Check
This had a pH of 4.09 about after canning, well below the upper safety limit of 4.6.
Eggplant salsa ph
Nutrition information
Per 2 tablespoons
- 10 calories, 186 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 0 points for 1 to 6 tablespoons, 1 point for 8 tablespoons
- Weight Watchers SmartPoints®: 0 points for 2 tablespoons, 1 point for 3 to 6 tablespoons
* Nutrition info provided by MyFitnessPal
* PointsPlus™ and SmartPoints™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® and SmartPoints® registered trademarks.
Maria Greenman
Can you use frozen tomatoes for this recipe?
Healthy Canning
Yes, you could.
Renee Ruggeri
Made this at the end of September with home grown tomatoes..just cracked a jar and WOW! this stuff is Awesome! Great on crackers!..only did a small batch last time just to test it but boy gonna be making a lot more of this.Thanks for a great recipe..
Peggy
can the eggplant be shredded!
Healthy Canning
You would need to ask Canadian Living directly.
Eric
We got a surplus of eggplant from our local grocery that was a few days from heading to the landfill. We looked around online to find ways of preserving it, and found this. It is, in a word, delicious. We did use chiles that we had smoked and dried, which adds a subtle background flavor that enhanced the overall taste of the salsa.
Lily
Question: Can I roast the eggplant and then process chunky with peppers & tomatoes?
Healthy Canning
You would need to ask Canadian Living directly.
Sheila W
This is my new favorite recipe! I can’t stop making it and eating it. Had an over abundance of eggplant this year and needed a tasty way to preserve it besides just freezing it. I used canned diced tomatoes instead of fresh. Thank you so much for this wonderful recipe! Just make it! You won’t be sorry!