Roasted Corn Salsa for Canning
Apologies in advance - I have another corn recipe today. What can I say, it's a short season!
This recipe actually isn't from my new cookbook, "Sweet Corn Spectacular", but it's definite a result of that book. Last week, we had to buy a BIG burlap sack of fresh corn, for our Kare 11 appearance. 4 dozen ears of corn, that we had a day or two to do something with.
(Update: Sweet Corn Spectacular has been completely redone, and is now Maize Craze. It's available directly through our site, through Amazon, and through most major booksellers!)
Now, my husband may be the World's Biggest Corn Freak, but two of us tackling 4 dozen ears of corn in a couple days? Not going to happen without involving some preservation!
After discussing some options, we decided to make some salsa. As the corn salsa recipes in the book aren't suitable for canning, that meant researching things like acid levels, and coming up with a new salsa recipe.
We spent the day preparing, roasting, and cooking our salsa - 3 different batches, with this being the favourite for tomato based versions. It was handy to do it as a two person thing - I'd roast the tomatoes inside, while he grilled all the rest of the vegetables.
At the end of it all, we were left with a ton of the BEST salsa we've ever had - it was definitely worth the effort! Yep, I think we're definitely ruined for store bought salsas, after this
I had considered adding 2-3 tsp of cumin to this, but as my husband isn't super fond of cumin, I skipped it. If you'd like to use it, add a bit with the sugar and salt, and adjust to taste at the end.
Enjoy!
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Roasted Corn Salsa For Canning
Equipment
Ingredients
- 18 Ears Fresh Corn Husks removed
- 7 ½ lbs Tomatoes
- 2 Large Red Onions
- 2 Poblano Peppers
- 2 Red Bell Peppers
- 2 Green Bell Peppers
- 6-8 Jalapeno Peppers
- 5 Garlic cloves Pressed or minced
- 3 ½ Cups Vinegar
- ⅔ Cup Lime Juice Freshly squeezed, ideally!
- 1 ½ Cups Granulated Sugar
- 1 Tbsp Salt
- 1 bunch Cilantro Chopped (about 1 cup)
Instructions
- Heat your grill – I like to use charcoal for this, but propane is fine also.
- While grill is heating, prepare your vegetables to roast:
- – Remove husks and silk from the corn
- – Slice onions into ½″ thick slices
- – Slice poblano and bell peppers into large flat pieces, Cut jalapenos in half.*
- Brush corn and peppers with olive oil, then grill everything until as “done” as you would like – personally, I like some dark grill marks for this, but not an overall char. Remove items as they are ready – the peppers will cook the fastest. Allow everything to cool.
- Turn your (oven) broiler up to high.
- Prepare a couple cookie sheets with foil or parchment paper. Slice tomatoes, arrange on baking sheets. Roast under the broiler until as charred as you would like. Pour off excess juices, allow to cool.
- Once everything is cool, chop up the peppers, onion, and tomatoes, and use a sharp knife to remove kernels from the corn. Add all roasted vegetables to a large pot, alone with garlic, vinegar, lime juice, sugar, and salt, stir well.
- Heat to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until liquid reduces a bit, and mixture reaches a consistency you like. Stir in the cilantro, if using, and cook for one more minute.
- Ladle into hot, sterilized pint sized canning jars. Affix sterilized lids and rims, and process in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. (Add 5 minutes for altitudes above 1,000 feet; add 10 minutes for altitudes over 6,000 feet.) Allow to cool overnight.
- Check all lids for a proper seal: they should have sucked down into a vacuum seal as the jars cooled. Store properly sealed jars for later use; refrigerate any that did not seal for use in the coming weeks.
Notes
Nutrition
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This recipe is fantastic. After grilling instead of chopping the veg I lightly blended it. Texture was great. Thank you for a great water bath canning recipe, there aren't enough recipes for corn canning out there!
I did not have tomatoes so I left them out, now I don't have any liquid, what else can I use for the liquid?
You're really going to want the tomatoes in there for the acid, especially.
This is delicious! Will be great in tacos, quesadillas, and with chips. Next time I will reduce the sugar as we find it a little too sweet. The “15 minutes” prep time is a joke - like any homemade salsa it takes hours to wash and chop all the vegetables. Here you have the added step of grilling everything before chopping. So it’s a lot of work but well worth it! The only problem with the recipe was it was not specific about the tomatoes. Here is what I would add to step 8:
“Slice the tomatoes in half lengthwise, leaving skins on. Broil, cut sides up, until charred.” I hope that saves someone else the time I spent trying to broil them correctly.
Hi Vinnie- Good catch on the tomatoes, I've since fixed that in the recipe.
As for the prep time, it does only take me about 10-15 minutes to wash and cut up the vegetables. The roasting time is part of the "cooking" time, not the prep!