The very best salsa recipe (easy, roasted, fresh)

4-5 lbs tomatoes, cored and cut into large pieces.
1 large onion
3-5 chili peppers
6 cloves garlic
1 bunch cilantro (about a cup of leaves)
juice of 2 limes
1-2 T of honey
salt to taste
optional 1 tsp cumin

put tomatoes, onion, peppers and garlic on a sheet pan and roast at 300 for 45 min-1hr.

Blend all ingredients, leaving out all the liquid that cooked out when roasting. Add cilantro, honey and salt and blend.

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Hey there, darlings. Welcome to the farmer’s table. My name is Jess. If you’re new here, I’m so glad you’re here. And if you’re not new here, welcome back. I am also glad that you are here. Today, we are in the kitchen and we are going to be making some fresh salsa. Uh if you’re anything like me, you are swimming in fresh tomatoes right now. What a great problem to have, right? Uh I just went and picked these from outside. They’re actually still nice and warm from coming in from the sun. Uh, this salsa recipe is my go-to. It has been for years. I actually made this way of of making salsa as a a solution to a problem that I I no longer have. I now am swimming in fresh tomatoes warm from the sun. But many years ago, before I had a garden, and I was learning to cook from scratch, I was buying all of my tomatoes from the grocery store in order to make salsa. And a lot of the recipes that I was trying to follow that I’d found on the internet, I found were really watery and they didn’t really have the flavor that I was looking for. So, one day I thought, you know what? I bet if I roasted my tomatoes, it would make everything taste a little bit stronger because roasting things typically does concentrate sugars and releases some of the moisture and amplifies the flavor. Now, I still roast my tomatoes, even though I probably could make a fresh salsa without and that would still be pretty good. But I found that when you roast all the ingredients first, it just makes it kind of magic. So, the way I do this is on a stone baking sheet. And I like using stone for this because whenever my oven’s ready. Uh because whenever you are going to be doing like a long roast where things are going to be releasing a lot of liquid, obviously there is the risk of a little bit of burning. Uh if you’re using like a metal pan, but you totally can use metal pans or glass pans. I have done that. Uh you may just want to line them with something first so that you don’t end up having to do a lot of scrubbing after the fact. So before I start laying out the recipe, I want to address one thing. Anytime I share this salsa recipe, I get asked inevitably, Jess, is this safe for canning? And what people are actually asking when they ask, “Is this safe for canning in most cases is, is this approved?” And the answer is no. I made this recipe up. Um, I’m not even measuring things on here a lot of times. I’m just throwing this stuff together. And basically, the rule is what is assumed safe for canning is that a mixture is under 4.0 0. Some people I’ve read 4.6. I don’t even know what the official pH is because I’m not measuring pH. So, it really doesn’t matter to me. But the idea is there is a level of this is safe pH for canning and it needs to be that or below it. And so any recipe that is called safe for canning like truly is lab tested and shown that that exact ratio of ingredients creates that exact pH balance. Um, I don’t really know exactly how that works because with tomatoes being grown in all different circumstances, I don’t know how you can actually nail it down that exactly. Uh, but I will tell you, I’m a common sense caner. Um, since I have been canning over the last 20 years, the rules have changed like multiple times just since I’ve been doing it. Uh, on multiple things. Oh, that used to be the guideline. Now they say XYZ. And anytime I’m in something and the rules are changing that quickly, it tells me, you know what, this isn’t as black and white as some people are saying. Now, I’m also in like a lot of rebel canning groups where people say, “Hey, we don’t follow the rules. This is what we do.” And I have seen some freaking bizarre stuff in the rebel canning groups. Stuff that I’m like, “Holy smokes, don’t ever eat anything somebody you don’t know can.” Like, that is how I feel whenever I see some of the stuff in those groups. Some of it has made me very brave. Even the bizarre stuff has made me great brave because when I go to the, you know, the website that that lists all of the deaths and injuries from botulism and all the things that they’re like, “Oh, if you don’t do it right, this could happen.” And I see the very low numbers. And I know those people are out there just so completely disregarding all the guidelines. I’m over here being like agonizing over, did I put enough teaspoons of lemon juice in to make this not kill my family? And I’m like, you know, I’m probably not even anywhere close to the gray area that is accounting for those numbers of people who are actually getting injured by home canned food. So, I believe in common sense. Uh, this recipe, I I do can it personally. I know that’s probably going to get the canning police on my tails telling me I shouldn’t tell people that, uh, but I do. I’m not telling you you should. I don’t know how you’re going to do this. You may have factors changing. Uh, proceed at your own comfort level. This does freeze very nicely. Or you can just enjoy it seasonally. Make salsa all summer, eat it as you’re making it, enjoy it, share it with your friends, and let it be a seasonal food that you enjoy uh the next summer without worrying about preserving a whole lot of it. I prefer it fresh. I mean, even after it’s been canned, it’s good, but I really prefer this recipe fresh. So, I’ve got my baking sheet here, and I’ve got my tomato. Now, another thing that comes up in conversation regarding canning and food safety and making salsa with tomatoes, u people will commonly say yellow tomatoes are less acidic than red tomatoes. And so, when you start having the conversation about pH levels and food and making sure things are safe, people are like, “Oh, make sure if you’re canning with yellow tomatoes that you’re actually adding acid.” Um, I’ve actually done some reading on this and from my understanding and feel free to research this yourself, but from my understanding as far as pH levels, yellow and red tomatoes are not marketkedly different. It’s actually the lycopine and so it’s the flavor of yellow tomatoes is less acidic uh than the flavor of red tomatoes. They’re definitely more tangy and have like a more deep acidic flavor, but on like a scientific level, if you were to pH test them, they’re actually very similar. So, I use a mix of both really because I like to have the flavors of different colors tomatoes mixed together for my salsa. I I don’t worry about that. The way that I do this is on a sheet. I I’m actually doing two cookie sheets today. I usually do two cuz that’s what I can fit in my oven at the same time. Uh but for the sake of sharing the recipe, I’m breaking this down to one baking sheet. It does not all have to be roasted on the same baking sheet for the flavor or anything like that. But I’m going to start by cutting uh up my tomatoes. I’ve got these big slicers. They have some funky spots in them. So, as I’m cutting, I’m going to like cut out any weird spots. And I’m also going to cut out the stem and the core because that is I don’t want that in my salsa. It does not break down easily. But, as you can see, this does not have to be exact. Just some big chunks of tomato on here. You can kind of see on this one how deep that core can sometimes go and why you wouldn’t want it in your salsa. It’s just really it’s really stiff and stem. All right, so on this tray I now have about four to five lbs of tomatoes cut up. Um because these slicers are huge. I’ve had huge tomatoes this year. It’s only like four out. The heat level is going to come down to your preference. I’m making this batch with just a few of these these volunteered. Um they look like jalapenos. I think they may have crossed with serranos because they’re quite a lot hotter than regular jalapenos, which is why I’m only using three. But usually I’m going somewhere between like two and five chili peppers depending on how hot I want this. Um you can throw super hots in here if you roll that way. We don’t. I don’t want my salsa to hurt me. Uh, but those three spicy jalapenos are going to be plenty for this tray of salsa. Now, I’ve got two medium onions here. I would say for each tray, you know, four or five lbs of tomatoes. One really large onion would work or two medium ones. And these I have obviously peeled the skins off of and I’m just going to cut them in half and throw them on the tray. And I’ve got, let’s see, one, two, three, four, five. I’ve got about six cloves of garlic. There’s a couple little small ones as well. Um, but I love garlic. So, I’m throwing all of those on there. And this is my tray to roast all of my ingredients on here. I’m going to go ahead and stick this in a 300° oven. And I’m going to let it go for at least 45 minutes. It can go up to an hour. This is probably going to depend on your oven and your pan. Uh, but I’m I’m basically wanting maybe a little bit of charred bits around the edges. Once they’re done roasting, those skins are going to be really easy to slip off. And a lot of the juice is going to have run out of my tomatoes. And of course, inside the tomatoes, the sugars are going to have caramelized. They’re going to have dehydrated some, uh, thus amplifying the flavor. I’m going to stick these in and get that other tray ready. And I will see you guys in, you know, 45 minutes to an hour. All right, I just pulled these out of the oven and I want to show you guys, you can see all this liquid in the bottom of this pan. It’s really our big reason for roasting. Um, it’s a 300°ree oven, so it didn’t get like super charred. I mean, it’s got some little dark spots on the edges, not a lot. That partially is due to the stone wear, cuz stone wear will typically dehydrate things before it burns them. Um, you may, if you did this on a metal pan, you may have more blackening. And I actually like when it blackens some. You can turn the oven on, like broil for just a couple of minutes, but I know myself and I typically don’t use the broil feature because I will ruin food. So, I’m just not going to do that. This is fine. If I’ve got the time, I will let this cool off to where it may be still warm, but easier to handle. So, I’m going to let these sit on the counter until they’re cooler. Uh you can immediately put these in the food processor if you’re wanting to just get this done, but it is really hot when it comes out of the oven. So, we’re going to let it cool and then we will mix it all together. My stuff is cool now. I had to change shirts. I’m not trying to be dramatic with the wardrobe change halfway through, but I squashed a tomato down the front of my shirt. So, uh I have the two cool trays here. After you take the tomatoes out of the oven, the skins come off pretty easily. Now, you don’t have to take the skins off. You can leave them on if you want, but they may be kind of like curled up a little bit after you blend your salsa together. I like to go ahead and pull off what’s easily pulled off. And actually, I already pulled all the skins off this tray. I was getting some freeze dryer trays of tomatoes ready to put in the freeze dryer. And I’m going to go ahead and stick all these extra skins on this tray and freeze dry them as well. You can also dehydrate them. And you just grind them down and make a like a powder. And it’s good for adding flavors into like soups, into like sauces, anything like that where you want some tomato flavor. And of course, you can just leave them in your salsa. But texturally, I prefer to get as much of them out as I can. All right, the next step, super easy. We’re going to take everything on this tray that is solid and we’re going to put it in the food processor. You may need to do this in batches um if your food processor is not large enough to hold it all. When I am doing like a large amount and I’m trying to blend it all together, I just get a really big bowl and I blend bits and batches and then mix it all together in the bowl. Uh the biggest thing here is is that I’m leaving all the liquid that got cooked off on the tray. Now, don’t immediately throw that out because if you want your salsa to be a little bit looser, you can always add some of it back in. We’re going to start by first just blending together everything that’s solid. Now, I am not one of those people that thinks cilantro tastes bad. I love cilantro, so I put like a whole bunch of cilantro in here. Like a whole cup. Um, and I just cut the ends off of the stem. So, it’s mostly the leaves. And I am also going to juice two limes into this. uh press them on the counter and roll them first to get them good and broke up. If you’re doing lime juice from a bottle, um I’m thinking that the juice of two limes, probably about 1/4 cup of lime juice. And then you’re going to salt this to taste. And then we’re going to go ahead and pulse this until it’s the consistency you like. If you like a chunkier salsa, you don’t have to blend it as much. I like it nice and thin. Now, one thing I like to do, you don’t have to do this, but remember I made this recipe with storebought tomatoes, and storebought tomatoes taste like disappointment. So, they need all the help they can get sometimes. Um, because I was trying to like deepen that flavor and give it a little more oomph, hence the roasting. I’ll also add just a little bit of honey. Um, not a lot, maybe like a table spoon or so. You could taste it and do a little bit more if you wanted to. Um you I don’t want my salsa to taste like honey. I don’t even really want it to be particularly sweet. But I find with the onions and the peppers and uh the acidic tomatoes, just that tiny little hint of sweetness really brings out the flavor of the tomatoes more. So I’m going to mix that in. At this point, you want to taste it. Uh make sure your salt level’s good. One sheet tray makes about 4 and 1/2 pints of salsa. And I like blending it down to be like a nice restaurant style salsa texture. This is the other batch. These are the two different batches. This one had more yellow tomatoes in it. One other thing you can do um if you want to add just a little more flavor is put like a teaspoon or so of cumin in when you’re blending it together. I don’t usually do that. Um, occasionally I will, but mostly I just like it tasting like the veggies. All right. Well, there it is. Um, this made those two trays together made about a gallon of sauce. I’ve got it in several different jars. Um, and I’m not I’m not canning this. This is going straight in the fridge. Uh, we’re still eating through this really fast. I’ve already made some batches this year, but towards the beginning of tomato season, like my family tears through the salsa once they start getting tired of eating it is when I start preserving it. I do have some friends that I wanted to drop this off with. So, I put it in smaller jars. When I’m putting it in in the fridge, just for my family, I usually do quarts. So, that’s it. That’s my salsa recipe. Um, I find that it does great with lots of different kinds of tomatoes. And I have had many people tell me, I’ve shared this before um over on Roots and Refuge, my homesteading channel. And I’ve had many people tell that me that this is their favorite salsa that they’ve ever had. And I agree, it’s my favorite salsa as well. So, thank you guys for hanging out with me today. I hope you love this. What do you like to do with your salsa? Have you made this? If you have, let me know what you think. Thank you for hanging out with me. God bless you. Until next time.