Roasted Tomato Salsa
Make this restaurant favorite at home! Our homemade Roasted Tomato Salsa recipe is an easy-to-make, fresh, gluten-free, and vegan salsa. It’s the perfect pairing for your favorite chips or as a condiment for any of your Mexican-inspired dishes!
Next, try our Roasted Poblano Sauce!
Bring on all of the gameday-watching snacks! We love a good dip or salsa around here because they are so easy to make and so much better than store-bought! Our homemade Roasted Tomato Salsa recipe is both of those things and it will fit into anyone’s diet since it’s gluten-free, vegan, paleo, and nut-free. Pair it with your favorite chips, tacos, or any other meal or snack that could use a fresh bright tomato condiment!
Ingredients Needed
- Tomatoes – Roma tomatoes are my favorite to use for salsa because of their firm flesh and lower moisture level. You can also use canned whole tomatoes, too.
- Fresh Cilantro – While you could use dried cilantro, this recipe is definitely best with fresh.
- Garlic and Onion – Just enough to add the right flavor, but not too much that it overwhelms the salsa. We prefer white onion, but you can use red too!
- Jalapeno – Just a bit to add a little heat, but if you like more heat, add more!
- Cumin and Chili Powder – To enhance, but not overpower.
- Lime Juice and Salt – Salt and acidity tie it all together!
Tools For This Recipe
(Amazon affiliate links)- You can find all of my kitchen essentials here!
Kitchen Scale – This is one of our most used kitchen tools!
Food Processor– This is the easiest way to blend everything for your homemade salsa, but you can also use your go-to blender, too.
Baking Tray – Use a rimmed sheet so that any of that liquid that cooks out of the tomatoes doesn’t spill over your oven.
Recipe Video
Roast the Tomatoes
While you can absolutely make a delicious restaurant-style salsa without doing any cooking, roasting the tomatoes with the onions, garlic, and jalapenos takes this from a good salsa to a great salsa.
Why is it important to roast the tomatoes? Roasting the tomatoes does a few things to make this homemade salsa even better.
- Moisture. It reduces the moisture of the tomatoes. This will ensure a less watery salsa overall
- Flavor! Roasting tomatoes brings out even more flavor from the tomato while adding a hint of smokiness.
- Color. Giving the tomatoes a roast will also bring out a vibrancy to the color of the tomatoes, too. This makes for an even prettier (and of course tastier!) homemade salsa.
- Easy Skim Removal. Once roasted, the skin of the tomatoes will come off in a snap, meaning and even smoother salsa!
Blend!
Once you have a lovely roast on all of the veggies, just add it all to your food processor or blender, then give it all a nice blend until it has the consistency that you’d like. Prefer a chunkier salsa? Don’t blend it as much. Prefer a smoother salsa? Blend it as much as possible!
Once done, you can eat this salsa immediately, although the salsa will still be warm We suggest that you let it chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, but ideally an hour, and then you have a beautiful homemade Roasted Tomato Salsa that’s free of the unnecessary added sugar that you’ll find in store-bought salsas, and it’ll taste like you’re at your favorite Mexican restaurant!
The perfect pairing to your favorite chips or to serve it on some of our homemade flautas, burritos, or any of our other Mexicain-inspired dishes!
Recipe Tips
Technically, no, you don’t have to and you can still make a tasty homemade salsa by just tossing all of the ingredients into the food processor, but you really don’t want to skip the roasting part because it reduces the moisture of the tomatoes and adds a ton of flavor and it also will make removing the skins of the tomatoes quick and easy.
Yes, you can use canned whole tomatoes, too but truly, this homemade restaurant-style tomato salsa is best with fresh roasted tomatoes.
This Roasted Tomato Salsa is actually best to make ahead because you’ll need to chill it for a while to not only cool the roasted tomatoes but also let all of the flavors meld. It’ll last in your fridge for up to 5 days.
As long as you roast the veggies, this homemade salsa will freeze great for up to 2 months. If you don’t roast, this salsa won’t freeze as well because the fresh tomatoes don’t hold up as well as the roasted tomatoes will when frozen.
The way that this recipe is written, I would not suggest canning it as the pH levels are not tested to hold up to long-term canning. If you would like a canned salsa recipe, this is a great one!
This homemade tomato salsa recipe as written is for a mild salsa. But you can absolutely kick up the heat by adding more jalapeno (and especially those jalapeno seeds) and adding more cayenne to adjust to your taste!
This Roasted Tomato Salsa is seriously sooooo good friends. My whole family loved it so much, it’s a staple in our fridge, now!
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Smooth, flavorful, and made with whole, healthy ingredients!
Enjoy! As always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think! Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
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Roasted Tomato Salsa
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 lbs roma tomatoes halved
- 1/2 white onion
- 1/3 cup fresh cilantro
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 jalapeno
- 1 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin
- 1/8 teaspoon chili powder
Instructions
- Roast Vegetables: Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking tray with foil and then add halved tomatoes, onion, garlic cloves, and jalapeno to the tray. Roast in the oven for 40 minutes.
- Remove Skins: Once roasted, gently remove the skins of the tomatoes and discard. They should pull off easily.
- Blend: Add the roasted tomatoes, onion, and jalapeno to the bowl of a food processor or a blender. Leave on the baking tray as much moisture from the tomatoes as you can. Then add the cilantro, salt, cumin, cayenne, and lime juice. Blend until desired consistency.
- Chill: Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving.
- Enjoy with your favorite chips or on our favorite Mexican dishes!
best salsa ever! beats every Mexican restaurant and I’m in Dallas Texas so that’s some tough competition. I have learned to allow the tomatoes to ripen on the counter for days before I make it.
curious about a double batch, how long should I cook 4 pounds?
Mary! I’m honored! Ooh great tip about letting the tomatoes ripen a bit more! So for double batches I need to do some more testing with time because I have not liked how a double batch does with just 10 more minutes, but I haven’t tried longer. I’ve been roasting a single batch at the time for the best results, but I will work more on it and get back to you!