Posted: 1/17/2010 12:12:34 PM EDT
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From what I read, water bath canning requires "proven" salsa recipes (to achieve the correct balance of acidic and non-acidic ingredients) for safety sake. With pressure canning, the acid vs. non-acid ingredients doesn't matter, right? I'd hate to can a bunch of salsa that isn't safe.
Thanks from the noob. 
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I don't think of pressure canning as something that makes any given recipe "safe." Yes, all things being equal, it's gonna be "safer" to pressure can an untested recipe than to do it in a water bath. But one of the problems with this approach is that processing time is still unspecified. How long do you process the salsa in the pressure canner? Ten minutes per pint? Twenty? Thirty? Your guess is as good as mine because it's an untested recipe.
If you absolutely can't live with a tested recipe then the best approach is to figure out the processing time for the lowest-acid ingredient and use that figure......even if that ends up overcooking the product as a whole. I take a different approach which is to stick very close to tested recipes. I might tweak a recipe a bit here or there, but we really don't alter recipes much. Also, we acidify all tomato products whether they're being processed in a pressure canner or a water bath. If I have to get a particular flavor or finish when I open a jar of something, I spice it up at serving time. I really just don't like having any doubts when I feed my kids something I canned two years ago. If you don't like my take on this, just wait a bit and someone will soon be along to tell you that they've made an untested recipe for years and have never had a problem. 
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