This is a recipe for home-canned Salsa ranchera, meaning “ranch-style sauce. It’s a spicy mix of roasted tomatoes and chiles, typically served warm or used as an ingredient in dishes.
It is a very common salsa in Mexico.
It is the salsa used to make Huevos Rancheros. You can also use it in dishes such as carne asada and enchiladas.
You could also use it as a dipping sauce with tortilla chips.
This recipe is from the Ball All New Ball Book of Canning.
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
Salsa Ranchera
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg plum tomatoes (3 lbs. Weight before prep.)
- 350 g jalapeno peppers (¾ lb. Weight before prep.)
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 onion (medium-sized. Around 100 g / 3 oz)
- 75 ml lime juice (fresh. ⅓ cup / 2.5 oz. About 3 to 4 key limes)
- 30 g coriander (aka cilantro. Fresh. ½ cup finely chopped. 1 oz)
- 2 teaspoons salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 225 C / 425 F.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with tin foil.
- Wash and core the tomatoes, put on baking sheet.
- Wash peppers, cut in half, stem, place cut side down on baking sheet. (You can also remove some or all of the seeds where a lot of the heat is if you wish.)
- Peel garlic, put on baking sheet
- Peel onion, cut into thick (2 cm / ½ inch) slices, add to baking sheet.
- Put tray in oven, bake until garlic cloves are soft -- about 20 minutes.
- Remove garlic cloves, chop, put in a large pot.
- Put tray back in oven, and bake until onion is tender -- about another 15 minutes. Peppers should be starting to char a bit and the pepper skins should be getting wrinkled.
- Remove tray from oven.
- Let tray also stand 15 minutes to cool a bit.
- Meanwhile, juice the limes. Set juice aside.
- Wash and finely chop the fresh coriander; set aside.
- Take skin off tomatoes, coarsely chop, add to pot where garlic is.
- Coarsely chop onion, add to pot.
- Chop garlic, add to pot.
- Peel peppers. Discard skin.
- Finely chop the peppers, add to pot.
- Bring pot to a boil, stirring frequently.
- Reduce heat, and let simmer uncovered 2 minutes.
- Stir in the prepared lime juice, fresh coriander and salt.
- 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.
- TOMATOES: Plum tomato means a paste, dry type tomato such as Roma, Amish Paste, San Marzano, etc.
- PEPPERS: Instead of jalapeno peppers, you could use another medium-hot pepper such as a green serrano. If you want to reduce the heat for your audience, replace some or all of the jalapeno with green bell pepper but don’t go over the amount called for.
- 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, 3 key limes may be enough. If don’t do this, you will probably need 4 key limes.
Recipe source
- Butcher, Meredith L., Ed. The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving. New York: Oxmoor House. 2016. Page 176.
Modifications:
- none
Nutrition information
With salt
Per 250 ml (1 cup / 8 oz)
- 56 calories, 1324 mg sodium
Salt-free
Per 250 ml (1 cup / 8 oz)
- 56 calories, 743 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
Cooking with canning recipes
Michelle Michaelis
I made this as written and my husband loved it, it was hot! Made another batch for myself using only two jalapenos and the rest (to bring to 12 ounces) green bell pepper. Flavor was good and just a touch of heat. Perfect for me! As others said, the yield in the recipe is off (I got five half-pints). A lot of work for a small yield, but it is now my go-to salsa recipe.
LA
The recipe shown here is not consistent with the Salsa recipe on the Ball website https://www.ballmasonjars.com/blog?cid=salsa-ranchera. The website states just 4 jalapenos not 3/4 pound. This is a huge difference that would impact safety. NCHFP specifically says do not alter the ratio of tomatoes and peppers. Which recipe can we trust? Please advise.
This is not the first inconsistency I’ve seen across the Ball resources (from book to book an book to website). I’m new to home food preservation. Everyone says Ball, NCHFP, and UGA “It’s So Easy to Preserve” are the only trusted sources. But, Ball is becoming questionable.
Healthy Canning
Hi, thanks for the heads up. I brought this to Ball’s attention and they corrected the quantity from 4 jalapeno peppers to 3/4 lb. jalapeno peppers, thus matching the book and what is here on this page. So there was never any safety risk using only 4 peppers, just there would have been less flavour and volume.
LA
Thanks for getting them them to fix that. I tried and never heard back. I appreciate you! Inconsistencies and/or typos have the power to really make us question if they’re doing due diligence.
Jen J
I just made a batch of this salsa for the third, and likely final, time. Yes, it’s delicious. But it’s incredibly labor intensive for the relatively low yield (the max I’ve ever gotten out of it is 3 pints). Going to hunt for a slightly simpler recipe now with a larger yield.
Michelle
I made this today (I saw the article here after). I used the ingredients as the recipe lists, but it made exactly 3 pints of salsa, not 4. That was disappointing, because I was hoping to give some away. Also, I left a FEW seeds, and boy is it hot!
Healthy Canning
Yields in home canning recipes are always phase of the moon! We’ve all been there.