Pace Style Picante Sauce

 

There are a ton of 'picante' sauce or 'salsa' brands on your local supermarket shelves for you to choose from for snacking with a big ole bag of tortilla chips while watching your favorite movie, or sports program. Well maybe a ton is an over statement, and well a ton is actually a measurement of weight and not a measurement of quantity, but I digress. Of all the picante style sauces, my favorite is one of the originals 'Pace Picante Sauce' developed in 1947. I has what I believe is a well balanced flavor with just the right consistency and size of chopped veggies.

I grew up eating the original Pace brand “medium” picante sauce, and while the company has gone on to add a variety of additional flavors and styles such as “chunky”, “mild”, and “hot”, the original is still my favorite. Besides, Pace picante sauce is an Texas original, not some family sauce created by someone up in New York City. So if you like the original, then making your own with fresh ingredients from your garden is even better.

So I took about 30 to 35 pounds of assorted tomatoes along with some cucumbers from the garden to my friend Steve Coyne's house who writes the 'I Grow Vegetables' blog and we decided to do some power canning (we also canned kosher dills, and refrigerator pickles). We used about 25 pounds of the tomatoes for picante sauce, and Steve made ketchup with the leftover skins and the cherry tomatoes. Anyway, here is my Pace style picante sauce recipe. It is easy, quick, and delicious and one I make every year. We just cannot seem to keep enough in the pantry. BTW, you can find Steve's recipe for refrigerator pickles by clicking on his blog link 'I Grow Vegetables'.

The Base Recipe

Honestly, the ingredients listed on the Pace “medium” sauce label are quite straightforward. Crushed tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, distilled vinegar, salt, garlic, water, and natural flavoring (whatever that is). As you can tell, the original Pace recipe was pretty basic, and I happen to think that Mr. Pace got it right with his original sauce. This base recipe is pretty close to his original “medium” style sauce. With this base as your foundation you can develop your own particular variation of the sauce to suit you and your families particular tastes.

10lbs tomatoes

3 jalapeno's, diced

2 large onions, diced

¾ cup distilled vinegar (5% acidity)

2 tablespoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons granulated sugar (optional)

1 tablespoon pickling salt

Wash tomatoes, remove the core from the small blossom end and then cut an 'X' on the bottom of the tomato with your paring knife. Place the tomatoes in a large pot with boiling water for 90 seconds. Then remove them and place them in a large bowl with ice water. Then remove the skins and coarsely chop the tomatoes and add to your stockpot. 

Dice the onions and jalapenos and add them to the stockpot (wearing rubber gloves when you dice up the jalapenos will keep your hands from burning). Then add the remaining ingredients (except the sugar) and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally to keep the salsa from burning.

Chef's Note: Do not add any additional water to the recipe, the liquid you get from boiling, dipping and removing the skins along with the vinegar is enough moisture. Adding extra water just means you have to cook it longer.

Reduce the heat and simmer the salsa for 30 to 45 minutes or until the mixture thickens. Once your salsa has the desired thickness, check the seasoning and add additional salt to taste. At this point you may add 1 – 2 tablespoons of sugar if you like your salsa to have a slightly sweet taste. Once you have adjusted the seasoning to your satisfaction, ladle the hot salsa into hot jars leaving ½-inch of headspace. Adjust lids and rings and process pints in a water batch canner for 15 minutes.

Chef's Note: Unlike my pasta sauce, I do not add tomato paste to my salsa. Rather I cook the salsa until it is thickened. You could use tomato paste to thicken your salsa if you desire, but for this recipe, my personal preference is to cook it down as it only takes 30 to 45 minutes rather than add tomato paste.

Chef's Note: When trying to determine the number of jars you will need when processing salsa, on average most recipes in the Ball Blue Book (see below) indicate that you get about 1 pint of salsa for each pound of tomatoes used. Of course adding more onions or other veggies may increase this number. For this batch of salsa we used 20 to 25 pounds of salsa and canned 20 pints.

Variations On A Theme

For this particular batch, I added a couple of bell peppers that I had in the refrigerator, but this recipe is so basic and right on, that there are an endless number of variations that you can make. Unless specified, all the base ingredients are the same, some of the techniques may be different. Some of the more popular variations include:

Mild – For a milder sauce, remove the seeds and membranes from the jalapenos before dicing them.

Hot – Increases the number of jalapenos to 6 to 8, and leave the seeds and membranes intact.

Chunky – For chunky variations either “mild”, “medium”, or “hot” simply cut the tomatoes and onions into larger chunks, pretty simple huh?

The possibilities are endless, for the batch in these photos I used only items from my garden so the pepper content was slightly different. I added a couple of green bell peppers, that we had in the fridge, two serranos, one jalapeno, and one poblano pepper (I didn't have enough jalapenos, and Steve did not have any). I could have bought some at the supermarket, but I was lazy. I just opened one of the jars that we made yesterday, the flavor as always is spot on, but it was a “mild” sauce as we doubled the recipe and we only had enough peppers for a single recipe. Anyway, I almost always add just a touch of sugar for a little sweetness. I know the original Pace ingredient label for "medium" picante sauce doesn't include sugar, and if your tomatoes are sweet enough you may not need it. However, we like our salsa with just a hint of sweetness.

Conclusion

If you like 'Pace' brand style original picante sauce, then you will definitely like this recipe. I make some every year and I cannot keep it in my pantry. The only complaint I get is from the grandkids, they want it to be hotter, but my wife likes it “medium”. So each year I have to tell the grandkids that I prefer to sleep in my bed and not the couch...[Grin]. Anyway I do always make a few jars with added jalapeno's for them, but I pretty much stick to the base recipe listed here. As always, if you have enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends and do not forget to send us a friend request on Facebook or add us to your circle on Google+ to get notifications regarding our latest recipes and articles.

Other Canning Articles On Our Blog:

Mr. Wages Kosher Style Pickle Clone Recipe.

Watermelon Rind Pickles.

Garden Variety Spaghetti Sauce.

In-depth Articles About How To Can On Our Blog:

Canning Basics: A Step-By-Step Guide.

To Pressure Or Not To Pressure: That Is The Question.

References:

Ball Blue Book Guide To Preserving (2011)

USDA Complete Guide To Home Canning, Guide 06: Preparing and Canning Fermented Food and Pickles. Revised 2015.