Tomatillos are one of those garden vegetables that even brown thumb gardeners just cant seem to kill. They’re known to produce 10 lbs or more per plant, meaning you’ll need to preserve most of your yields to keep them from spoiling before you can get to them.
The first year we planted them the rest of our garden failed and we let the plot go back to hay field, only to find a hearty crop of tomatillos waiting for us under chest high grass. We harvested 40 lbs of tomatillos from 8 plants completely untended and buried in grass. More than once I’ve been given a trash bag full from neighbors or friends that wanted to try growing them but didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.
40 lbs of tomatillos reading to make 4 dozen jars of canned tomatillos sauce
Green sauce (Salsa Verde) is a spicy sauce traditionally made with tomatillos, onions and lime juice. The lime juice is added both for flavor, and to increase the acidity so that this recipe can be water bath canned. Chili peppers, cilantro and cumin provide the dominant flavors. Try slow cooking a pork shoulder in the crock pot covered in salsa verde, or make a quick weeknight batch of green sauce enchiladas.
Tomatillo Sauce Recipe (Salsa Verde) for Canning
Yield: About 12 pints
Process Time: 15 min for pints
Headspace: 1/2 inch
Ingredients
10 lbs tomatillos, husked & chopped
4-5 large onions, finely chopped
1/2 to 1 cup chili peppers, chopped (hot or mild varieties, your choice)
2 full garlic bulbs, peeled & chopped
1 cup cilantro, minced
1 cup lime juice
1 Tbs. ground cumin
1 to 2 Tbs. salt (to taste, start with 1 and taste before adding more)
- Combine all ingredients in a large stock pot and bring to a simmer on the stove. Simmer for 40 minutes to an hour to allow the tomatillos to break down and flavors to meld. Taste and adjust salt accordingly.
- Ladle sauce into prepared pint mason jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace, and process in a water bath canner for 15 minutes. (20 minutes for quarts)
- Remove from the canner and allow to cool at room temperature before checking seals to make sure all jars have properly sealed. Place any unsealed jars in the refrigerator for immediate use.
*Cook’s Note: For a smooth sauce, process all ingredients in a food processor and reduce stovetop cooking time to simmer for 20 minutes before canning. This will save you a lot of time chopping, but wont work if you’re hoping for a chunkier sauce.
JUST GETTING STARTED CANNING?
If you’re just getting started canning, but plan on making canning and preserving food part of your lifestyle long term, try investing in an online canning course. Pioneering today has a canning with confidencecourse that takes you through the ins and outs of canning from basic canning safety all the way through to pressure canning meat at home. The course covers:
- Canning Safety – Safe techniques to for home canning
- Water Bath Canning – Jams, jellies, pickles, tomatoes, and other high acid fruits and vegetables including low sugar, no pectin variations.
- Pressure Canning – How to safely operate a pressure canner at home to can almost any type of food for long term preservation
- Troubleshooting and Storage – Figuring out why a recipe just didn’t work, and maximizing storage of your home canned goods.
TAKE A LOOK AT CANNING WITH CONFIDENCE IF YOU’RE PLANNING ON INVESTING HEAVILY IN LONG TERM HOME FOOD PRESERVATION.
Tomatillo Sauce Recipe for Canning (Salsa Verde)
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Chloe
This is our first year at our garden. The squirrels broke in and ate everything except the tomatillo plants. I had really given up and was ready to write the whole year off but these five plants fooled me. I’ve already harvested 40lbs with more to come!
Thanks for this recipe that’s measured in pounds not cups. It’s very difficult converting 40lbs of tomatillos into salsa using recipes that call for 2 or 4 cups.
Natalie
Hello,
I would love to make this recipe, but was wondering if you can recommend how long to process half pints?
Thank you!
Natalie
Ashley Adamant
Good question! I should add that to the article. The process time for half pints is 15 minutes, same as pints. Thanks for asking.
Julie
Can I half this recipe?
Ashley Adamant
Yes.
Elide
Hi there! I have been making my own salsa for a while but never canned it. I have a question, I hate putting lemon or vinegar in my salsa, Could I pressure can it instead of water bath and leave out the vinegar/lemon juice? If so, I wonder how to pressure can salsa, I guess you can say I’m a beginner who purchased a very expensive pressure canner about 5 years ago and used it once. I’d love to pressure can salsa but still not sure how. Thanks in advance!
Ashley Adamant
Good question! The main reason this recipe needs to much vinegar is because of all the low acid onions. Tomatillos are high acid, can be water bath canned without added acid (method here). If you remove the onions and garlic, you can just can the tomatillos as a puree in a water bath canner. That may not be what you’re hoping for though.
If you want to make this recipe but without any vinegar or citrus juice for added acidity, know that there’s no safe tested recipe specifically for pressure canning tomatillo sauce that I can find. If I were doing it, I’d follow the instructions for canning the least acidic ingredient (onions in this case). You can find that here: https://www.clemson.edu/extension/food/canning/canning-tips/31preserving-onions-garlic.html
It says can in quarts of pints at 10 pounds pressure for 40 minutes, adjusting for altitude.
Barclay
I have never followed anyone on any social media platform.myour tomatillo recipe and other ones on your site encouraged me to do. There was a local restaurant owner called Ninfa here. She started making tortillas, the started a restaurant that was wildly successful…the eventually was sold and began to collapse. Ninfa’s green sauce is not only famous but could be a good foundation use for your tomatillo sauce.
Donna
I am excited to make this! My question is: would roasting the ingredients on the grill enhance the flavor or detract from it?
Ashley Adamant
I’d say that would improve the flavor and sounds lovely. Enjoy!