autherray ... I've used both when making Annie's salsa.

I want everyone to know: I DID NOT CAN THESE.

I was just making it fresh and didn't have apple cider or even regular vinegar on hand.

When I used lemon in place, it tasted great to me. In my own cooking I find that the acidity of lemon doesn't last as long as the acidity of vinegar in recipes. I mean that by way of taste, not the actual pH. I am biased to lemon, tho. I don't like too much vinegar in anything. So, try a small batch and see if you prefer lemon.

bon

ReaLemon or ReaLime juice are approved as a safe substitute for the vinegar in making/canning Annie's Salsa. Please note that when food safety experts tested the pH of various brands of lemon and lime juice, only ReaLemon and ReaLime tested consistently at the proper pH for canning and that's why they are safety-approved as a substitute for the vinegar. Other brands tested at too low of a pH too often to be considered safe substitutes for the vinegar. Because the safety of the produce depends on the proper pH, you shouldn't use any other brands and you shouldn't use real lemon juice or real lime juice since they aren't pH tested.

I use ReaLemon and ReaLime both and I don't believe I've made a single batch with only vinegar since I began using ReaLemon and ReaLime. You can substitute ReaLemon, ReaLime or both for the vinegar, or use them in conjunction with vinegar as long as the total amount you use equals the total amount called for in the recipe.

My favorite way to make Annie's Salsa is to use 1/3 C. ReaLemon, 1/3 C. ReaLime and 1/3 C. vinegar. It gives a nice balanced flavor that doesn't taste too strongly of any of the 3 produces used. Some people like using 1/2 C. vinegar and 1/2 ReaLemon or ReaLime, depending on what their taste buds prefer.

My least favorite thing about any home-canned salsa that I've had my whole life (prior to finding the recipe for Annie's Salsa) was that the salsa always had such a strong vinegary flavor to it, and that dates back to at least the 1960s when I was a child helping my dad make home-canned salsa from tomatoes he grew in our garden. As a canner, I understood that this was necessary for safety reasons, but I didn't care for that strong vinegar flavor even though I understood why it had to be that way.

When I first learned you could use ReaLemon or ReaLime as a substitute in Annie's Salsa for some or all of the vinegar, I was so excited. I made Annie's Salsa that year with every component---some batches only with ReaLemon, some only with ReaLime, some with half and half, and some with 1/3 of each of the three. We clearly preferred the version with 1/3 ReaLemon, 1/3 ReaLime and 1/3 vinegar and that's how we've made it ever since.

Because I can so much salsa over the course of the gardening/canning season, I stock up on vinegar, ReaLemon juice and ReaLime juice well before canning season begins. I usually get the ReaLemon in 2-packs of very large bottles at Sam's Club or CostCo in late Spring, and I buy as much as I think I'll need for the whole canning season, based on what I've used in previous seasons. Neither of the big box warehouse stores carry ReaLime, so I just buy numerous bottles of it at Wal-Mart. If I've planned well, I don't have much ReaLemon or ReaLime left at the end of my salsa-canning season. I might have part of a bottle of each left, but I just use the juice in my morning cup of tea until it is all gone.

There's nothing worse than running out of any canning supply or ingredient in the middle of the hectic canning season, so I stock up on everything in advance. There's nothing worse than needing canning salt, vinegar, ReaLemon, ReaLime, pectin, canning jars, canning lids, labels, etc. and discovering they're sold out at every store (lots of canners here in our area). From January through May, I'm stocking up on all the supplies I'll need and that makes life easier when canning season begins.

Authereray, after a little experimentation with more RealLime and less vinegar last year, I went back to the 1/3 vinegar, 1/3 ReaLime, and 1/3 ReaLemon. The only way you will know which you like best is to try it different ways. I'm not very crazy about the vinegar taste in salsa either, but when the proportions are divided equally between the vinegar, ReaLemon, and ReaLime, it really is pretty darn good. Everybody loves it.

Thank everyone for their input about this. According to the Ball Canning book bottled lemon juice can be substituted for vinegar for people that don't like the vinegar taste. I like apple cider vinegar in some recipes better than white vinegar because it doesn't seem to taste as strong.