This is a delicious, easy-to-make, low-cal 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 (1/2 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 (1/2 inch)
Processing time: Either size jar 15 minutes
Pico de gallo
4 x half-litre jars (US pint)
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. 1/2 cup / 4 oz)
- 1 teaspoon salt ( OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
Instructions
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Get a medium-sized sauce pot.
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Wash, core, halve and seed the tomatoes. Chop finely. Add to pot.
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Peel the onion, chop finely, add to pot.
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Wash, stem, seed and chop the jalapeno finely, add to pot.
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Add all remaining ingredients to pot.
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Bring to a boil.
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Reduce heat to low, and let simmer uncovered for 3 minutes.
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Ladle sauce into heated jars, leaving 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 15 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.
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
Would you need to adjust the processing time if packing in quart jars?
“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.
Is the 2 lb of tomatoes before or after cutting/seeding them?
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.
Can I add green peppers and garlic to this recipe?
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.
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?
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.
I agree. You’be got a salsa not pico de gallo. Nothing wrong with salsa, I use both. Just correct that nomenclature 🙂
can i double or triple this recipe to make a bigger batch?
Yep. I just did a batch, tripling it. Just do the math on paper first: https://www.healthycanning.com/adjusting-batch-size-home-canning/