Smoked Salsa with Zucchini for Canning

Get ahead of the zucchini abundance with this smoked salsa. It’s even suitable for canning, and could make awesome winter gifts from summer’s abundance. This smoked salsa goes well with chips, tacos, chili, and more.

This recipe will work with both young, tender zucchini, and with the older, larger, monster zucchini. Just use the zucchini that you have available, and the tomatoes, peppers, and onions that you have available. Aim to keep the spice level about the same, unless you like a higher spice content. You can tweak some of the ingredients to what you have on hand, or tweak the recipe size according to what you have the most or least of.

This smoked salsa is designed as a medium heat salsa, that may lose some heat during canning, if you chose to can it. If you chose not to can this smoked salsa, it will keep in the fridge for about six weeks.

The best tomatoes for salsa are roma tomatoes or paste type tomatoes. However, you can also use beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, or any tomato you have an abundance of. The best salsa is made with ingredients you have an abundance of on hand. Even if that’s making substitutions like eggplant instead of zucchini, just as long as you have peppers, onions, and garlic for flavor. Use fresh ingredients as much as possible.

Smoked Salsa

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• Author: Sarah

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Description

A healthy zucchini and tomato salsa that’s smoked for extra depth of flavor.

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Ingredients

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• 12 cups zucchini, coarsely grated
• 3 medium onions, finely diced
• 2 red sweet peppers, finely diced
• 1 green sweet pepper, finely diced
• ¼ cup sea salt (non-iodized)
• 12 cups chopped fresh roma tomatoes
• 6 smoked poblano peppers, diced
• 2 smoked jalapeno peppers, diced
• ¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely diced
• ½ cup honey
• 2 cups cider vinegar

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Instructions

1. Grate the zucchini with the skin on using the coarse side of a box grater or food processor.
2. Add the grated zucchini to a large bowl. Add onions and sweet peppers to the bowl along with the salt.
3. Stir briefly to distribute the salt. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 4 hours.
4. Meanwhile, wearing gloves, slice the poblano and jalapeno peppers in half. Remove the seeds and membrane.
5. Place the prepared peppers in a grill pan. Using a pellet grill or smoker, smoke the peppers
   at 225°F for 3 hours, turning halfway through the smoking time. Allow the peppers to cool until they are cool enough to handle.
6. Wearing gloves, cut the peppers into fine slices.
7. Prepare the tomatoes, by dipping the tomatoes for 1 minute in boiling water to loosen the skins. Plunge the tomatoes in cold water. Slip the skins and remove the core end of the tomatoes.
8. Coarsely dice the tomatoes and place them in a large pot. Add the cilantro, cumin, pepper, and garlic cloves to the pot with the tomatoes.
9. Drain the zucchini mixture in a colander. Rinse with cold water to remove excess salt. Squeeze out excess liquid and add the zucchini to the tomatoes in the pot.
10. Stir well to evenly distribute the zucchini and tomatoes in the pot. Simmer the pot over medium heat to reduce the liquid, about 2 hours.
11. Add the smoked hot peppers to the tomato – zucchini mixture. Stir well. Add the honey and vinegar.
12. Continue simmering over medium heat until the mixture is thickened, about 30 more minutes.
13. Ladle into clean pint jars, leaving a ½ inch head space. Wipe the jar rims, and add lids and rings to the jars. Place the jars in a water bath canner.
14. Water bath can the salsa for 15 minutes, plus your altitude adjustment. (I’m at 2700 feet and processed my jars for 20 minutes).

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Smoked Salsa with Zucchini for Canning

• 12 cups zucchini, coarsely grated
• 3 medium onions, finely diced, use yellow or red onions
• 2 red sweet peppers, finely diced
• 1 green sweet pepper, finely diced
• ¼ cup sea salt (non-iodized)
• 12 cups chopped fresh roma tomatoes
• 6 smoked poblano peppers, diced
• 2 smoked jalapeno peppers, diced
• ¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon pepper, freshly ground
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely diced
• ½ cup honey
• 2 cups cider vinegar

Directions:

1. Grate the zucchini with the skin on using the coarse side of a box grater or food processor. Add the
   grated zucchini to a large bowl. Add onions and sweet peppers to the bowl along with the salt. Stir
   briefly to distribute the salt. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside for 4 hours.
2. Meanwhile, wearing gloves, slice the poblano and jalapeno peppers in half. Remove the seeds and
   membrane. Place the prepared peppers in a grill pan. Using a pellet smoker or pellet grill, smoke the peppers
   at 225°F for 3 hours, turning halfway through the smoking time. Use hardwood pellets for smoking, like hickory, apple, or oak, or use wood chips alongside your normal smoking pellets.
3. After smoking, allow the peppers to cool until they are cool enough to handle. Wearing gloves, cut the peppers into fine dices. If you prefer a smoked salsa with even more smoke, you can also make smoked tomatoes in the same way and then combine two sets of tomatoes and the peppers. Or you can pre-smoke all the salsa ingredients, but the peppers are a simple and easy way to start to see if you like the flavor of smoked salsa.
4. Prepare the tomatoes, by dipping the tomatoes for 1 minute in boiling water to loosen the skins. Plunge
   the tomatoes in cold water. Slip the skins and remove the core end of the tomatoes. Coarsely dice the
   tomatoes and place them in a large pot. Add the cilantro, cumin, pepper, and garlic cloves to the pot
   with the tomatoes.
5. Drain the zucchini mixture in a colander. Rinse with cold water to remove excess salt. Squeeze out
   excess liquid and add the zucchini to the tomatoes in the pot. Stir well to evenly distribute the zucchini
   and tomatoes in the pot. Simmer the pot over medium heat to reduce the juices, about 2 hours.
6. Add the smoked hot peppers to the tomato – zucchini mixture. Stir well. Add the honey and
   vinegar. Continue simmering over medium heat until the mixture is thickened and flavors have melded, about 30 more minutes. Taste test if desired.
7. Ladle into clean pint jars, leaving a ½ inch head space. Wipe the jar rims, and add lids and rings to the
   jars. Place the jars in a water bath canner. Water bath can the salsa for 15 minutes, plus your altitude
   adjustment. (I’m at 2700 feet and processed my jars for 20 minutes).

If you prefer salsa with a smoother texture, you can use an immersion blender to fully blend this smoked salsa recipe together. However, most people do prefer a salsa with a bit more of a irregular consistency and less like a pasta sauce.

You can make this homemade salsa without the zucchini, just making it a tomato salsa by omitting the zucchini and adding in the same quantity of tomatoes to make a plain tomato salsa with smoked peppers. You could also smoke the zucchini, though smoked vegetables are awesome just on their own and don’t need to be added to salsa.

More Ways to Preserve Food:

Preserving garden and farm fresh produce can be better than the equivalent products you can get at grocery stores. Try some of these food preservation methods and recipes to get the most out of your end-of-season harvests, green tomatoes, ripe tomatoes, and other garden abundances.

If you have a resurgence of rhubarb this autumn, this BBQ sauce could be a great counter-point to the smoked salsa in a BBQ. While this sweet cherry BBQ sauce can be whipped up from frozen cherries.