Canning Sweet Chili Sauce!

 

Sweet chili sauce cool after being taken from the canner.

This is a fantastic recipe! You can use it for chili or even over meatloaf. Locally, at a farmer's stand in Franklin, TN, I bought a half bushel of organic, Amish tomatoes for $24 which is less than $1 a lb.


Sweet Chili Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 bushel of tomatoes (usually a box about the size of a case of paper and weighing about 25 lbs)
5 cups sugar
1/3 cup salt
3 1/2 cups white vinegar
7 large onions, chopped
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
2 green peppers, chopped
2 red peppers, chopped
5-6 hot peppers of choice, chopped
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons red pepper flakes (more if you like it spicy)
1 teaspoon celery flakes or a few stalks of celery, chopped

Directions:

Remove skin from tomatoes by emerging into boiling water for 1 1/2 minutes and then plunging into ice water to cool.  Skins should easily peel off.  (Just a note - don't throw away the skins.  You can dehydrate them and ground them to use in soups, sauces or as a seasoning!) 

 

I used a Rival 22 quart turkey roaster to cook the chili sauce.  It is available at Amazon.

Roughly chop tomatoes and other vegetables.  Add to a large pot or electric turkey roaster.  Stir ingredients and simmer 5 to 7 hours uncovered or until it reaches desired thickness.  After about an hour of cooking when the vegetables soften, use an immersion blender to blend ingredients to a sauce-like consistency.  You will need to stir more frequently toward the end of cooking.

At the end of cooking, you should see a reduction of at least an inch from the original line when you began to cook.  More if you like it thicker.

Place sauce into sterilized jars and water bath 20 minutes.

Makes 20 to 22 pints.