Pico de Gallo is a delicious, easy-to-make, low-cal home-canned salsa that you can have ready to use as a dip at a moment’s notice.
Served with tortilla chips, it’s incredibly morish.
This is a recipe from Ball.
Just 8 calories per 4 tablespoons.
The recipe
If you wish to double or triple the batch, do the math first on paper.
Jar size choices: Either quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz) OR half-litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz)
Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: Either size jar 15 minutes
Pico de gallo
Ingredients
- 1 kg Roma tomatoes (2 lbs. Weight after removing seeds.)
- 1 onion (medium)
- 1 jalapeno peppers (large)
- 2 tablespoons coriander (aka cilantro. Fresh, washed and chopped)
- 125 ml lime juice (bottled. ½ cup / 4 oz)
- 1 teaspoon salt ( OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
Instructions
- Get a medium-sized sauce pot.
- Wash, core, halve and seed the tomatoes. Chop finely. Add to pot.
- Peel the onion, chop finely, add to pot.
- Wash, stem, seed and chop the jalapeno finely, add to pot.
- Add all remaining ingredients to pot.
- Bring to a boil.
- Reduce heat to low, and let simmer uncovered for 3 minutes.
- Ladle sauce into heated jars, leaving 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 15 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.
For salt substitute, Herbamare Sodium-Free was used.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
Recipe notes
- You can use a food processor to do the chopping, or do it by hand with your favourite good old-fashioned kitchen knife, or, you can pass these combined through a food mill with a salsa attachment in place.
- To be clear, you don’t peel the tomato. The super acidity here of all the lime juice takes care of any worry about the peel here.
- Don’t skip the seeding step. If you leave the seeds and the gel sac around them in, you will get a runnier salsa. Also the seeds may add a touch of bitterness to some people’s tastes.
- People often report getting only 3 jars instead of the 4 that Ball suggests you will, so just be mentally prepared for a lower yield.
Prepared salsa, ready to can
Recipe source
- Ball HarvestPro Sauce Maker Recipe Guide. 2016. Page 8.
Modifications:
- Added options for using a food processor or doing it manually; added option for salt sub.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per 4 tablespoons
- 8 calories, 72 mg sodium
Salt-free version
Without the salt, or by using a salt sub, the sodium goes down to 1 mg sodium per 4 tablespoons of salsa
* Nutrition info provided by My Fitness Pal
Jo Walsh
If you can it shouldn’t you drain it after opening to be more like “fresh”??
becky
Can I add cumin to this?
Healthy Canning
Yes, it is safe to tweak home canning recipes with dried spices. See here: https://www.healthycanning.com/safe-tweaking-of-home-canning-recipes/
kris
just made it today and I doubled it and only got 5 pints, Im not complaining, just letting others know my results! And it tasted great right outta the pot! Looknig forward to opening a jar next week!
Melody
Did you find that this recipe canned just fine?
Gayle Moore
We doubled the recipe and only got 5 pints, disappointed at that.
Healthy Canning
The yield on home canning recipes is always phase of the moon; we’ve all been there.
jeff
What is the shelf life for this recipe? My friend said forever I feel there might be a slight exaggeration but I’ve tons of jalapeños an tomatoes perfect for this
Healthy Canning
See shelf life: https://www.healthycanning.com/the-shelf-life-of-home-canned-goods/
Lisa
Must the pico de gallo be refrigerated and how long is it good (safe to eat)?
Healthy Canning
You may refrigerate it if you don’t want to can it. I have no time estimate to give you for the uncanned, refrigerated version — 4 to 5 days maybe? You could also freeze it.
Devetta Marxen
I make fresh Pico all the time and I would say she’s right maybe 5 days max it’s good. it get’s watery but that’s probably because I don’t deseed it. I am going to try the canning method as all the store bought salsa it’s good anymore!
Chris
This worked very well for me. Thank you. One comment: my yield with slightly more than 2 lbs seeded tomatoes was 3 pints (or rather 6 half pints)…
Healthy Canning
Yields in home canning can be so phase of the moon, all over the place, sometimes in recipes like this it is as simple as the variety of tomato used.
Carrie
Canning this also depends on how small the vegetables are cut of what your yield will be
Kellie
This recipe is still safe, even though the tomatoes aren’t peeled? Thanks!
Healthy Canning
The people developing the recipe tested it specifically for it having the peel left on. That makes all the difference — they put critical controls into place to allow it to be left on.
Kristee
Do you have to cook it?
Also can I use cherry tomatoes?
Lani
Found this recipe to yield a very runny salsa even with all seeds and pulp removed. Did I just chop the tomatoes too small?
Healthy Canning
Maybe you used “slicing tomatoes” meant to be eaten fresh? Paste-type tomatoes such as Roma are less runny.
kelsey
Would you need to adjust the processing time if packing in quart jars?
Healthy Canning
“You can use smaller jars than a tested recipe calls for, but not larger. You can’t use a larger jar than the recipe indicates. The reason is that larger jars usually requires a longer processing time for proper heat penetration to the food in the centre of the jar, and thus would require a longer tested and and verified processing time to ensure quality and food safety.” See this article for more info on using different canning jar sizes.
Teresa
Is the 2 lb of tomatoes before or after cutting/seeding them?
Healthy Canning
Good point, thank you, we are usually careful to clarify but we missed it on this one. Corrected. Weight after, so buy a bit extra.
Peggy Bates
Can you put in jars raw? So more crisp taste?
Healthy Canning
Lab-tested home canning recipe directions, like this one, are meant to be followed as directed, particularly when it involves product going hot into a jar.
Melanie Wilson
Can I add green peppers and garlic to this recipe?
Healthy Canning
As a good rule of thumb, when tweaking a canning recipe, you never increase the amount of low-acid ingredients, and green pepper is a low-acid ingredient. So is garlic, but it would be fine to sneak an extra clove in — but not 10. See: Safe Tweaking.
Becca
Hi, in your recipe for Chicken Wing Sauce, in the recipe notes you say that instead of using 3 kg of Roma tomatoes, you can use 2 1/2 litres of store bought canned and crushed tomatoes. For this Pico recipe, that requires 1 kg of Roma tomatoes, can I triple it and instead use 2 1/2 litres of store bought canned and crushed tomatoes?
Healthy Canning
I’m not sure that tinned tomatoes would give the right texture for what is meant to resemble for the most part a “fresh salsa.” You might also end up with a very liquidy salsa.
John Watson
I agree. You’be got a salsa not pico de gallo. Nothing wrong with salsa, I use both. Just correct that nomenclature 🙂
Shirley A Tom
can i double or triple this recipe to make a bigger batch?
Healthy Canning
Yep. I just did a batch, tripling it. Just do the math on paper first: https://www.healthycanning.com/adjusting-batch-size-home-canning/