Cherry Salsa

Cherry salsa is a fantastic choice for a canning project. There is a short window of time to prepare it fresh, it can be hard to find commercially and it is super-delicious!

Since cherries are on the pricey side, towards the end of the season is the best time to take advantage of sales (unless you are lucky enough to have a cherry tree and can harvest your own). Stock up, spend an afternoon canning and you'll have fresh cherry salsa year-round.

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Step 1: Ingredients

Ingredients
3 lbs cherries
1 bunch cilantro
1 long hot pepper
6 small sweet peppers
1/2 cup water
5 Tbs sherry vinegar
6 cloves garlic
2 Tbs chia seeds (for thickening and they are crazy-healthy, can substitute 1 Tbs dissolved cornstarch)
Juice from 2 limes
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Tools
1/2 pint canning jars (8)
Paper towels
Cloth towel
Asparagus steamer (or actual canning equipment)
Oven mitt (or canning tongs)
Knife
Cutting board
Juicer
Saucepan
Chopstick

The_Monkey_King says: Jul 26, 2011. 11:23 AM

Arrrrgh! Must cilantro be in everything? To those few others, I'm not fond of the terrible taste or what it does to my innards.

There are other much more benevolent and pleasing spices, yes?

minerug in reply to The_Monkey_KingAug 20, 2011. 6:55 PM

You could maybe chuck in half the amount of flat leaf parsley?

dog and pony show says: Jul 25, 2011. 11:07 AM

This looks wonderful! What type of hot and sweet peppers did you use? It looks like a green bell and some various habaneros. Also, what types of things do you serve this with?

annahowardshaw (author) in reply to dog and pony showJul 25, 2011. 8:38 PM

I used one hot pepper (the green one is one of the longer hot peppers rather than a bell) and some sweet mini peppers. I'd never seen the mini peppers before, but they were cute, so I incorporated them.

This is a medium-spicy, so add or subtract hot peppers accordingly. It's also super-garlicly, so you might want to do some taste tests as you go.

It seems that a lot of people serve this with fish or chicken. I just have it with chips : )

Thank you for the comment!

drmojo in reply to annahowardshawAug 13, 2011. 2:08 PM

The 'longer hot pepper' looks like an anaheim chili, from what I can tell. They are really tasty when grilled.

dog and pony show in reply to annahowardshawJul 25, 2011. 8:46 PM

Ok, that sounds good... I'll adjust accordingly. I saw the mini-sweets at the market today, too. Very cute! :)

Good luck on the contest!

iolaniann says: Jul 26, 2011. 7:47 PM

To say this is good is an understatement! My daughter an I made it today and WOW! Good basic to start with . Make it different by "tweeking" with fresh ginger, less cilantro, a different vinegar maybe? Less cilantro wouldn't hurt for in some cases. Fast, easy and tasts wonderful! A pleasure to make and more of a pleasure to gift and eat!