Canning Tomatillo Sauce
Tomatillo sauce is an easy way to use up a bumper crop of tomatillos in season, and this simple canning recipe allows you to preserve it right on your pantry shelf.
Ingredients
- 4 dry quarts tomatillos husked, washed, and finely chopped
- 1 cup yellow onion finely chopped
- 8 garlic cloves finely crushed
- 1/2 cup lime juice
- 4 tbsp fresh cilantro minced
- 4 tsp ground cumin
- 4 tsp red chile flakes
- 4 tsp salt
Instructions
- Sterilize your jars and lids, either by doing so in a pot of boiling water or in the dishwasher.
- Place a large skillet on your stove over medium-high heat. Add in all the ingredients, along with a half a cup of water (optional, but it helps prevent burning right at the start), and then let the mixture simmer and cook while stirring often.
- Wait until the sauce thickens and condenses to about one-third of its original consistency. This usually takes 15 to 20 minutes.
- Once the sauce has thickened to your liking, remove it from the heat and carefully pour it into a blender or food processor. Blend everything until it's smooth and creamy.
- Funnel your freshly blended sauce into the sterilized jars, making sure to leave half an inch of headspace at the top. Wipe the rims of the jars to make sure they're clean before applying the lids and rings.
- Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes for pint jars (or 20 minutes for quarts), adjusting for altitude. After the canning time have finished, take out the jars and place them on a flat surface to cool.
- Once they're completely cooled off, store them for up to one year.
Notes
This recipe is adapted from the book Preserving By the Pint: Quick Seasonal Canning Recipes for Small Spaces by Marissa McClellan. The original recipe was for a micro batch recipe, just one pint from 1 dry quart of tomatillos picked up at the farmer's market. I've increase the recipe a bit, to give you a more meaningful batch size of 4 pints.
You can divide by 4 to get back to a single pint, or increase this recipe as much as you like. We often harvest tomatillos by the bucket full, so I've made this recipe with more than 20 lbs of tomatillos in one batch. That's perfectly fine, and you don't need to worry about issues with doubling the recipe, provided you have a big enough pot (and stir well to keep it from sticking to the bottom).
Altitude Adjustments
Water boils at a lower temperature at higher altitudes, so jars need to be processed a bit longer as you go up in elevation. Here are the altitude adjustments for canning tomatillo sauce:- For Under 1,000 Feet in Elevation - 15 minutes for pints or 20 minutes for quarts
- For 1,001 to 3,000 Feet in Elevation - 20 minutes for pints or 25 minutes for quarts
- For 3,001 to 6,000 Feet in Elevation - 25 minutes for pints or 30 minutes for quarts
- For 6,001 to 8,000 Feet in Elevation - 30 minutes for pints or 35 minutes for quarts
- For 8,001 to 10,000 Feet in Elevation - 35 minutes for pints or 40 minutes for quarts