This home canning recipe for Roasted Salsa Verde made with tomatillos is delicious with chicken, beef or pork. It’s also good as an ingredient in a baked dish such as enchiladas, or as a dip.
Salsa Verde means “green sauce.” In European cuisines, green sauce is usually an uncooked herb sauce, but in Mexican cooking, it’s based on roasted tomatillos — the sour, green cousins of tomatoes and Cape Gooseberries.
This is a recipe from the Ball All New.
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: 3 x half-litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 20 minutes
Roasted Salsa Verde
Ingredients
- 2 kg tomatillos (4 lbs)
- 2 onions medium
- 2 jalapeno peppers
- 6 cloves garlic
- 125 ml lime juice (fresh. ½ cup / 4 oz. About 4 to 6 key limes)
- 25 g coriander (aka cilantro. Chopped fresh. ¼ cup / 1 oz / 4 tablespoons)
- 2 teaspoons salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Get a large, rimmed baking sheet and line it with tin foil.
- Start heating oven to 225 C / 425 F.
- Husk the tomatillos, and wash them. Don't peel. Arrange on baking sheet, stem side down.
- Wash the jalapenos, cut in half. Seed or not -- up to you. Place cut side down on tray.
- Don't peel the onion. Cut each into wedges of four. Arrange on baking sheet, peel sides up.
- Peel the cloves of garlic. Add to tray.
- Put tray in oven, bake until garlic cloves are soft -- about 15 minutes.
- Remove garlic, put in a food processor bowl.
- Put tray back in oven, and bake until onion is tender -- about another 15 minutes. Peppers and tomatillos should be starting to char a bit.
- Remove tray from oven, and let stand to cool a bit.
- Remove and discard stems and seeds from the peppers, add peppers to a food processor bowl.
- Remove and discard skin from onion, add onion to food processor bowl.
- Add tomatillos to food processor bowl. (To be clear, the tomatillos never get peeled.)
- Whiz in food processor until smooth.
- Put in a pot at least 4 litres (quarts) in size.
- Add all the remaining ingredients.
- Bring to a simmer, then remove pot from heat.
- Ladle hot 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 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.
For salt substitute, Herbamare Sodium-Free was used as it is non-bitter and non-clouding.
Recipe notes
- The reason you need a rimmed baking sheet is to prevent dripping juices making a mess of your oven. The reason you line it with tin foil is to make clean-up easier.
- Try your best not to stack the ingredients on the baking sheet or they will steam instead of roast.
- TOMATILLOS: To be clear, they don’t get peeled at any point.
- ONIONS: We are leaving the peel on the onion just for the roasting part, so that the peel can help protect the onion from drying out. The recipe says cut each into wedges of 8, but doing only 4 wedges leaves less surface to dry out / possibly burn in the oven. Use white or yellow onions.
- PEPPERS: Instead of jalapeno peppers, you could use another medium-hot pepper such as a green serrano. If you want to use other peppers, keep them green or yellow for the colour, and bear in mind that the weight of two average jalapenos, with stem and seeds in, will be 30 to 60 g (1 to 2 oz) combined, so no more than that of alternative pepper. If you need to leave out all heat for your audience, you could use an equivalent weight of green bell pepper or, you can only use 1 jalapeno to reduce the heat a bit. It’s always safe to reduce the fresh pepper in salsas, you just can’t increase it.
- 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. If you do this, 4 key limes may be enough. If don’t do this, you will probably need 6 key limes. And yes, you could use bottled lime juice instead.
Recipe source
- Butcher, Meredith L., Ed. The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving. New York: Oxmoor House. 2016. Page 167.
Modifications:
- Changed jalapeno roasting procedure to seeding first rather than after roasting, as it’s easier to do first and there’s less wastage of surrounding pepper flesh. But if you don’t plan on seeding them at all, then just wash them and throw them onto the baking sheet whole.
This recipe also appears in the recipe book which accompanies Ball’s HarvestPro SauceMaker (page 18, 2016 edition.) There, the recipe has been scaled down to 2 pints (half-litres), and, directions are to put the ingredients through the machine. Interestingly, the scaled down version still calls for the same volume of lime juice.
Nutrition information
With salt
Per 2 tablespoons
- 17 calories, 113 mg sodium
Salt-free
Per 2 tablespoons
- 17 calories, 16 mg sodium
Cooking with canning
This salsa is a featured ingredient in Ball’s recipe for pressure-canned Chicken Chili Verde.
Jen
Love this one, but I have to peel them. I find baby catapillers in mine at times. Tomitillos taste the same to me peeled or not. Thanks for a great recipe
Megan
We can swap in red onions, or a mix still, right? How big IS a medium onion? (This is why Ball drives me nuts sometimes :D)
Amy
Could I freeze this recipe instead? If so, any idea how long for?
Healthy Canning
You may freeze this. If freezing in Mason jars, leave adequate headspace. https://www.healthycanning.com/the-role-of-headspace-in-home-canning/#Headspace_for_freezing_in_mason_jars How long? Typically these days home economists are saying freeze stuff for a max of 6 months for best quality, but there’s no safety concern, so how long you want to freeze it for is up to you and your definition of quality which granted may differ when considering pork chops versus a sauce etc. (one gets freezer burnt quickly, the other does not.)
Zoe
Just tried this recipe for the first time today. I’ve had salsa verde in restaurants before and there are really good reviews on this recipe. I have a few questions if anyone can answer. Can the cilantro be left out? I really don’t like the flavour. I made the first batch following the exact recipe but I have enough tomatillos for a 2nd. Also Thor the tomatillos do you core them before roasting?
Healthy Canning
(a) Yes, it’s fine to leave the cilantro aka fresh coriander out. (b) No, do not core the tomatillos.
Lisa Brown
This is a great recipe. I’ve made it twice and will put it in my “go-to” section for canning. I used my blender but only pulsed a few times to maintain a little texture. I’ve done both oven roasting and used my grill with excellent results. I used Garden Salsa peppers so it’s tangy with a little bit of lingering heat.
Lindsey
I know it’s been a while since this was written but due to a massive windstorm I am left with about 50 lbs of green tomatoes. While I will try to ripen many of them I’m concerned with having many green ones left over and my family is very picky but they enjoy a good Verde sauce.
Would I be able to substitute the green tomatoes for the tomatillos in this recipe?
Thanks!
Healthy Canning
Here are some recipes for green tomatoes, including a salsa: https://www.healthycanning.com/green-tomato-canning-recipes/
Vikki
I made salsa verde but i processed my quart jars for 15 minute is it possible to keep and can i represses it again or do i need to i didnt know that i should prosses longer or what should i look for thank you i appreciate your time .
Healthy Canning
Quart jars are not an option for this recipe. You can’t make up your own jar sizes and processing times. See Jar sizes: https://www.healthycanning.com/jar-sizes/
Rachel
Few questions:
1. Is there a safe processing time for US quart jars?
2. Limes – ok to use any fresh limes (not key) doesn’t have to be bottled for acidity?
Healthy Canning
The largest jar size that was tested for is pints. Ball did not specify any specific variety of lime. Bottled lime juice would be fine as well.
Zacky
I tried this recipe this morning, using fresh tomatillos I found at a Mexican grocery store in Montreal. This is so delicious. It’s a hundred times better than the store-bought bottled roasted salsa verde. The salsa is also thicker, as opposed to quite liquid texture of the store-bought. It will hold better on anything we will use it on. For me the yield was 8 one-quarter liter (250 ml) jars, plus about half a cup leftover. Next year I’ll plant tomatillos and jalapenos in my garden. The harvest will be processed using this tasty recipe and stock up for the year.
Lynnette Campbell
Hello,
For this recipe do you include cilantro stems?
Thank you
Lynnette
Healthy Canning
Out of frugality, I did include a bit but not most, because I thought too many might be too “stick-like” texture wise. You’d need to ask Ball directly if they have any thoughts otherwise …. This salsa is very good btw, one of the best. I plan to do several batches in a week or so.