Not enough acid to safely can. Its probably one of those commercial recipes that have preservatives in them. Corn starch is out too, as Clear Jel, a modified food starch would be the proper choice to thicken it slightly. Half the water and make up the difference with vinegar, that should help some.

goodness, it would be very vinegar-y if you substituted a cup and a half of the water for a cup and a half of vinegar!

What I see here is only *two tablespoons* total of low acid ingredients, so that really seems like overkill!!

I'm not sure why you'd want to go to the trouble of canning it, since it's made up pretty much totally of already dried & processed ingredients, except for the jalapeno.

But if I were going to try to do it, I'd leave out all but a cup of the water --- whatever it took to get the consistency of the tomato paste down to more like tomatoe sauce --- and increase the vinegar to maybe half a cup (that's what the roasted red pepper spread uses, albeit slightly stronger vinegar, for a lot more non-acid stuff). I'd leave out the cornstarch (seems unnecessary to add all that water to thin it and then add sthg to thicken in!).

I would use fresh onion (why not, since we're preserving the finished product.

When I opened a jar, I could add back in more water to reacch the desired consistency.

But probably instead if I wanted to eat this stuff often, I would mince some jalapeno & onion and put together little "batches" of all the solid ingredients, pre-measured, and put them in the freezer. When I wanted sauce I would open a can of tomato paste, add the 3 cups water and 2 tsp vinegar and an ingredient pack, cook for the 3 minutes, and bingo.

Zabby

I don't know how much the jalapenos raise the pH. Tomato paste can vary from Cornstarch definitely would be eliminated.

However, with all due respect, I agree with Zabby. You'd be taking a canned product and re-canning it when the original recipe is close to fast-food already. A lot of cost is being added (lids, water, energy) without a lot of additional value.

Carol

> Tomato paste can vary from True enough. But if you leave the water out, you have a batch size of no more than a cup! Since 1 cup of vinegar provides more than enough acidification for a 14-cup batch of salsa....

But if you leave all the water out, you are left with something really thick, and I wouldn't know how that might change things. And wouldn't want to guess. Which is why, IF I were going to make sthg like that, I'd thin it down to a known consistency --- adding a cup of water would make a batch size of about 2 cups, and adding 1/2 cup of vinegar to that would make the whole shebang 20% vinegar by volume.

I'm just talking theoretically here for the sake of an interesting discussion, though. As I said, I wouldn't bother --- not because I object to its "fast food" contents (hey, I just admitted in another thread that I eat Kraft Dinner, especially with Roasted Pepper Spread in it! and I do go slumming at Taco Bell sometimes, when BF isn't with me...), but because it would be so little trouble to put together just before you want to use it; just keep some chopped jalapenos in the freezer....

Zabby

I wasn't even thinking of upping the vinegar, just looking at the original 2 teaspoons, assuming that if you add vinegar you have an entirely different product from the original.

It is an interesting issue, though - this question of whether there are products that don't perhaps justify the effort and energy cost of canning. Of course, deciding that is purely personal.

Carol