Sauce · Water-bath canned
Canned Chile Hot Sauce (NCHFP Tested Recipe)
Five pounds of tomato, two pounds of chile and a pound of onion with a cup of 5% vinegar, simmered 10 minutes, processed 15. The tested shelf-stable hot sauce.
Tested process
This is the National Center for Home Food Preservation's "Chile Salsa (Hot Tomato-Pepper Sauce)", a tested recipe. Pint jars, 1/2-inch headspace, boiling-water bath: 15 minutes at 0–1,000 ft, 20 minutes at 1,001–6,000 ft, 25 minutes above 6,000 ft. Use vinegar labelled 5% acidity and do not reduce it. Do not add more chile, onion or tomato than the recipe lists, and do not add oil, garlic or other ingredients that are not in it. The recipe lists "chile peppers" by weight and names no variety; keep the total at 2 lb.
If you started today, in Zone 6, in pots
5 plants. 7 jars. Sauce on Jul 31.
Worked from Zone 6's average last frost (Apr 21) and each cultivar's days to maturity. Your zone and your space change every date below. The builder does that for you.
- Jan 6Order seeds and starting supplies
- Jan 27Sow indoors under lights
- Apr 21Average last frost (Zone 6)
- Jul 12First Roma Tomato harvest
- Jul 12First Jalapeño harvest
- Jul 12First Spanish Onion harvest
- Jul 17First Serrano harvest
- Jul 31Sauce day: Canned Chile Hot Sauce
- Jul 31Process in a boiling-water bath
Save it
The whole season, one pin
| Yield | About 6–8 pints, 7 pint jars |
|---|---|
| Active time | 75 minutes |
| Total time | 60 minutes prep, 10 minutes simmering, 15 minutes processing |
| Heat | Medium to hot. Jalapeño (2,500–8,000 SHU) and serrano (10,000–23,000 SHU) split by weight, 1 lb each. |
| Target finished pH | Below 4.6 (fixed by the tested vinegar and tomato ratio) |
| Preservation | Water-bath canned |
| Fruit this batch eats | 5 lb Roma Tomato1 lb Jalapeño1 lb Serrano1 lb Spanish Onion |
What you have to grow
Most hot sauce recipes online are a blend and a hope. This one is a lab-tested ratio from the National Center for Home Food Preservation: 5 lb of tomato, 2 lb of chile, 1 lb of onion and a full cup of 5% vinegar, simmered 10 minutes and processed in a boiling-water bath. It is the shelf-stable hot sauce on this site. It comes out thick and chunky, closer to a hot salsa than a pourable bottle sauce, and it is built to sit in the pantry for months.
We checked the amounts, method, headspace and process times against the live NCHFP page on 2026-11-09.
What you need
From NCHFP, exactly as tested. Weights are as purchased, which means the fresh fruit before peeling and seeding.
| Ingredient | Tested amount |
|---|---|
| Tomatoes (Roma) | 5 lb |
| Chile peppers (jalapeño and serrano) | 2 lb |
| Onions | 1 lb |
| Vinegar, 5% acidity | 1 cup |
| Salt | 3 tsp |
| Black pepper | 1/2 tsp |
Yield is 6 to 8 pints.
Method
- Prep the chiles. Gloves on, hands away from your face. Wash and dry them and slit each one on its side so steam can escape. Blister them in a 400 °F oven or under the broiler for 6–8 minutes, or on a wire mesh over a hot burner for several minutes. Cool them in a pan under a damp cloth, slip off the skins, discard the seeds and chop.
- Peel the tomatoes. Dip them in boiling water for 30–60 seconds until the skins split, then in cold water. Slip off the skins and remove the cores. Chop coarsely.
- Combine the tomatoes, chopped chiles, chopped onions, vinegar, salt and pepper in a large saucepan.
- Bring to a boil and simmer 10 minutes.
- Fill hot pint jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles, wipe the rims and fit the lids.
- Process in a boiling-water bath:
| Altitude | Pints |
|---|---|
| 0–1,000 ft | 15 min |
| 1,001–6,000 ft | 20 min |
| Above 6,000 ft | 25 min |
Start timing when the water returns to a full rolling boil over the jars. Let the jars sit in the water 5 minutes after you turn off the heat, then lift them out and leave them undisturbed for 12–24 hours.
What you can change, and what you can’t
- Pepper type: any mix, same total weight. NCHFP gives 2 lb of “chile peppers” without naming a variety. Shift the jalapeño and serrano split toward the heat you want, but the total stays at 2 lb. A serrano-heavy jar is roughly three to five times hotter than a jalapeño-heavy one.
- Vinegar: never less. It is 1 cup of 5% vinegar. The acid is what holds this much low-acid tomato, onion and chile below pH 4.6.
- Tomatoes, chile and onion: never more. All three are low-acid.
- No oil, no garlic, no fruit. None of it is in the tested recipe.
For anything else, make a fresh batch and refrigerate it. Canning acid math covers why 4.6 is the line.
Grow it
A single Roma plant yields about 9 lb, so one plant covers the 5 lb of tomato. The 2 lb of chile is roughly one jalapeño plant and one serrano plant at their average yields, and 1 lb of Spanish onion is about one large bulb, which the planner rounds up to two plants at that crop’s yield. The same Roma and jalapeño rows also feed canned Roma salsa and tomato taco sauce.
Storage
Store sealed jars in a cool, dark cupboard and use them within a year for best quality. Once opened, refrigerate. Any jar whose lid flexes, or that spurts or smells off when opened, gets thrown out without tasting. The water-bath canner and jar tools are covered in canning gear.
The kit for this sauce
Each item is selected for a job in this recipe. Amazon listings, sellers, and prices can change; check the current details before you buy.
Roma Tomato Seed (300+)
The determinate paste tomato: it ripens most of its crop inside a three-week window. That is a liability for eating and an enormous advantage for sauce day.
Jalapeño Pepper Seed
The one you smoke into chipotle. Left on the plant to red and corked, then cold-smoked, a jalapeño stops being a taco garnish and becomes the backbone of an adobo.
Serrano Pepper Seed
Cleaner and greener than a jalapeño at roughly three times the heat. The correct chile for salsa verde and zhoug, where you want brightness rather than smoke.
Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion Seed
A long-day storage onion with enough sugar to sweat down without scorching. The aromatic base under every tomato sauce on this site.
58" Square Tomato Cages, 3-PackMust have
The conical wire tomato ring from the hardware store is 33 inches tall and an indeterminate San Marzano will laugh at it in July. Height and square geometry are what actually hold a loaded plant.
Garden Harvest Basket with Tool Caddy
A harvest basket that doubles as a colander means the hose rinse happens in the garden and the dirt stays outside. On a 20-pound tomato day that saves real time.
Digital Kitchen Scale, 11 lb, g/ozMust have
Fermentation brine is a percentage of weight, measured in grams rather than spoons. Without a gram scale you are guessing at the one number that determines whether the ferment is safe.
Nitrile Exam Gloves, 200 pcs, food-safeMust have
Capsaicin is oil-soluble and does not wash off with soap. Seeding a pound of habaneros bare-handed means eight hours of burning hands and one unforgettable mistake involving your own eye.
Gourmet Stainless 12-Quart Stock Pot
For twenty pounds of tomatoes, the Dutch oven is too small. Twelve quarts of non-reactive stainless is the batch-scale vessel, and it doubles as a water-bath canner in a pinch.
21.5-Quart Enamelware Water Bath Canner with RackMust have
Water-bath canning is the tested process for high-acid foods, meaning anything reliably below pH 4.6. The rack is required: jars sitting on the pot floor crack from direct heat.
Canning Essentials SetMust have
A jar lifter is a safety tool rather than a convenience: you are moving glass full of 212 °F sauce. The headspace gauge is the other half, since wrong headspace is the most common reason a seal fails.
Pint (16 oz) Regular Mouth Mason Jars with Lids and Bands
The right size for marinara, where a jar is one dinner for a family. Same rules as the half-pints: the glass is forever, the flat lid is not.
Mason Jar Lids, Regular Mouth, 12 CT (Pack of 6)Must have
The flat lid's sealing compound is designed for one heat cycle. Reusing it is the single most common cause of a jar that seals, then quietly unseals in November.
Canning Jar Labels, 360 pcs, removable
Date every jar. In March, three jars of red sauce are indistinguishable, and 'it's probably the one from August' is not a food-safety practice.
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Questions people actually ask
Is this the same as the Louisiana-style fermented hot sauce?
No. This is a chunky, tomato-based cooked sauce with a tested water-bath process. The Louisiana cayenne mash is a fermented, blended, refrigerated sauce with no tested canning process. Pick this one if you want pantry jars.
Can I blend it smooth before jarring?
The tested procedure chops the vegetables, simmers 10 minutes and fills the jars. Blending is not in it, so we do not instruct it for canning. Blend an opened jar instead, or keep a blended batch in the refrigerator.
Can I use habanero or ghost pepper?
NCHFP lists "chile peppers" at 2 lb total and names no variety. Extension guidance on salsa lets one pepper type stand in for another at the same volume. Keep the total at 2 lb, and expect a much hotter jar.
Can I add garlic, oil or herbs?
Not in the jar. Garlic and oil are not in the tested recipe, and added low-acid ingredients change the acid balance the process was validated for. Stir them into an opened jar or a fresh batch.
Can I use quart jars or half-pints?
Not with these times. The NCHFP page gives process times for pints only.
Last reviewed 2026-11-09 by the SeedsToSauce Test Kitchen. Spotted something wrong? Tell us. Corrections get published.