Easy Homemade Salsa Recipe – Fresh, Chunky & Ready In Minutes!

Making homemade salsa couldn’t be easier! With a handful of fresh ingredients and a food processor or blender, you can have a delicious batch of chunky salsa ready to enjoy in just minutes.

This is our go-to recipe when we want a small batch of fresh salsa to serve with tortilla chips or alongside dinner during the summer. There is no cooking required, no need to peel the tomatoes, and very little prep work involved.

Simply chop the tomatoes, onions and peppers and add them to a food processor or blender. Toss in a few seasonings and some fresh cilantro, then pulse everything together. In less than two minutes, your salsa will be ready to serve!

Use it as a dip for tortilla chips, spoon it over tacos and burritos, or add it to any of your favorite Mexican-inspired dishes. It is especially delicious when made with ripe tomatoes and peppers picked straight from the garden.

However, you don’t need bushels of produce to make this recipe. It is designed as a small-batch salsa that can be prepared quickly and enjoyed immediately. The combination of fresh vegetables, cilantro and spices creates a flavorful, slightly chunky salsa with the perfect homemade taste.

And best of all, the entire recipe takes only minutes to prepare! If you have a large harvest and are looking for salsa recipes that can be preserved for later, try one of these favorites:

Canning Tomato Salsa Recipes

• The Best Mild Canned Salsa Recipe
• Our Favorite Canned Salsa Recipe

Best Type of Tomatoes To Use To Make This Easy Homemade Salsa

Whenever I make salsa, pasta sauce or pizza sauce for canning I always use paste tomatoes as the primary variety of tomato. These type of tomatoes are often labeled as Roma, Amish Paste or San Marzano tomatoes.

The reason that they are the preferred tomato in most salsa or sauce canning recipes is because they have thick walls. And that means that they are able to stand up to the cooking process better than standard slicing tomatoes.

Slicing tomatoes, which can be anything from Big Boy, Beef Steak, or Celebrity tomatoes have a larger seed core than paste tomatoes. Therefore, they produce more liquid when cooked down.

However, because you won’t be cooking to make this homemade salsa recipe, you can use just about any variety of tomato that you have on hand. The only difference will be in the thickness of the salsa.

If you use all slicing tomatoes that have a high water content, the end product will be on the thinner side. On the contrary, if you use all paste tomatoes the salsa will turn out thicker, even if you pulse it longer in the food processor.

And of course, if you have an abundance of cherry tomatoes that you don’t know what to do with, it is okay to use them in this recipe as well.

How To Make Fresh Homemade Salsa In Minutes

*Complete recipe instructions including specific measurements, cook temperatures and times are located in a printable recipe card at the bottom of this article. However, be sure to keep reading for helpful tips and tricks when making this recipe.

INGREDIENTS

• 10 Paste Tomatoes, roughly diced*
• 2/3 cup roughly diced Onion
• 2 Garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1/2 cup Cilantro leaves and stems
• juice of 1 Lime,
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 Jalapeno pepper, diced
• 1 Poblano pepper, diced
• 1/2 tsp granulated Sugar (optional)

*Because the size of tomatoes vary so much, you are looking for about 1 1/4 pound of paste tomatoes. If you are using slicing tomatoes, plan on using approximately 3-4 medium size tomatoes.

If you are using only cherry tomatoes to make this easy homemade salsa, you will need 25-30 cherry tomatoes. One of the things that I love about this recipe is that it isn’t an exact science.

So if you like your salsa with more tomato flavor, add more tomatoes. However, if you want the bite of peppers and onions to shine through just as much or more, adjust the amount to your preference.

INSTRUCTIONS

The first step in making this easy homemade salsa is to prepare the tomatoes. Wash and dry the tomatoes and then cut off the stem and remove the core.

Then cut each tomato in half and squeeze out the excess juice and seeds. It is okay if some of the juice and seeds remain in the tomato.

The objective here is to remove what you can just by squeezing it with your hands so that the salsa doesn’t turn out too runny. As for the seeds, squeeze what you can, however, you may need to pop the seed core out with a spoon if it is being stubborn.

Cut each tomato half in smaller chunks and then place the tomatoes in a food processor or blender. Push the pulse button 4-6 times until the tomatoes reach a thick, chunky consistency.

*It is important to use only the pulse button. If you place your food processor on low or high, the salsa will turn out as thin as picante sauce.

After the tomatoes have been broken down a little, place all of the remaining ingredients into the food processor with the tomatoes. Press pulse 3-5 times to get a well combined, chunky salsa.

That is how easy it is to make homemade salsa! You can eat it right away or cover and place in the refrigerator for an hour to allow the flavors to meld even more.

Serve immediately or refrigerate for up to 5 days. The salsa will become thinner the longer it has been refrigerated.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. I don’t have fresh garlic, can I use jarred minced garlic?

If you don’t have access to fresh garlic cloves, you can certainly use the jarred minced garlic. 1 garlic clove equals 1/2 teaspoon of jarred minced garlic.

Therefore, in this recipe substitute 2 garlic cloves with 1 teaspoon of jarred minced garlic.

2. How many teaspoons are in the juice of a lime?

If you don’t have a fresh lime to squeeze for juice, you can substitute bottled lime juice instead. The average lime will yield 6 teaspoons (2 tablespoons) of lime juice.

3. Is this easy homemade salsa recipe hot?

Because we are using both jalapeno and poblano peppers in this recipe, the salsa can get spicy. However, if you don’t like much spice but would like to enjoy fresh salsa, simply reduce the heat.

Do this by removing the seeds and ribs of the peppers before they go into the food processor. You will still get the flavor of the peppers, without all the heat.

Enjoy!

Mary and Jim

Jim and Mary Competti have been writing gardening, DIY and recipe articles and books for over 16 years from their 46 acre Ohio farm. The two are frequent speakers on all things gardening and love to travel in their spare time.

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