This roasted tomato salsa is better than anything you can buy at the store! Our recipe has a short ingredient list, and you can use our tips to make your salsa mild, medium, or spicy!
I genuinely love this roasted salsa and am always happy when we’ve made it. It’s absolutely delicious and easy to dial in the spice level, depending on how spicy you like things.
This recipe is inspired by our roasted tomatillo salsa, which has received so many happy reviews. There has been so much positive feedback for it that we decided to try the same recipe but use red tomatoes instead of tomatillos. Just like the tomatillo salsa, this tomato salsa tastes amazing! For a quicker salsa, see our easy red salsa, which uses canned tomatoes.
Key Ingredients
- Tomatoes: I love fresh tomatoes for this salsa. You can use canned whole tomatoes, but you won’t get the same level of char on the tomatoes since they are more wet.
- Chile Peppers: I love this roasted salsa made with jalapeño and serrano chile peppers. Serranos are usually a little spicier than jalapeños, but after I roast them, I remove the seeds and membrane to make the salsa medium-hot. If you love spicy salsa, leave the seeds in!
- Garlic: For a sweeter roasted garlic flavor, I toss unpeeled garlic cloves into the same dish as the tomatoes and roast them together. Then, before you blend the salsa, squeeze the roasted garlic out of the cloves.
- Onion, Cilantro, and Lime: To freshen up the salsa, I blend in raw onion, lots of fresh cilantro, and lime juice.
How to Make Roasted Tomato Salsa
The salsa is really simple to make. You’ll start with roasting the tomatoes, peppers, and garlic. Place them onto a rimmed baking sheet and slide them under the broiler on high, turning each ingredient so all sides become slightly charred. If you’d like to do this outside, you can! I’ve included roasting tips on a BBQ in the recipe below.
Let the tomatoes, peppers, and garlic cool down a little, and then pull away the skins (it should be easy). You can leave some black skins from the tomatoes and peppers intact for a bit of color and char.
Remove the core of the tomatoes and add them, along with the peppers and garlic, to a food processor. Add raw onion, fresh cilantro, and fresh lime juice, and blend until you are happy with the salsa’s consistency. I like it a little chunky.
You can enjoy the salsa immediately, but if you have the time, cover it and place it in the refrigerator. As the salsa sits, it becomes even more flavorful. Then, enjoy however you like. I love this with homemade tortilla chips!
Easy Roasted Tomato Salsa
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
For this easy roasted tomato salsa, we char tomatoes, garlic, and peppers and then add them to onion, cilantro, and lime for a flavorful and addictive homemade salsa. As this tomato salsa cools, it becomes really flavorful. In fact, if you have the time, leave it in the refrigerator for an hour or two before serving. Or make it a day or two in advance.
You Will Need
1 pound tomatoes (3 to 4 medium)
1 jalapeño pepper
1 serrano pepper
2 unpeeled garlic cloves
1 small onion, chopped (about 1/2 cup)
1/4 cup loosely packed cilantro leaves and tender stems
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or more to taste
Salt and fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Directions
1Heat the broiler with a rack about 4 inches below the heat source. Place the tomatoes, jalapeño, serrano pepper, and garlic into a baking dish.
2Broil, turning occasionally, until they’re blackened in spots, about 8 minutes. Let tomatoes, peppers, and garlic cool. See notes for using a grill.
3When the tomatoes, peppers, and garlic are cool enough to handle, peel most of the skins from the tomatoes and remove the cores.
4Peel most of the skins from the peppers and remove the seeds. For a spicier salsa, leave in some or all of the seeds. Remove the softened garlic from the peel.
5Add roasted tomatoes, peppers, garlic flesh, onion, cilantro, lime juice, and a pinch of salt to a food processor or blender. Pulse 3 to 4 times or until the salsa is mostly smooth and no big chunks of tomato remain, scraping down the sides as necessary.
6Adjust with more lime juice, salt, or pepper based on consistency and taste. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for about 1 hour for flavors to develop.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Using canned tomatoes: I love using fresh, ripe tomatoes in this recipe since they have so much flavor. You can use canned tomatoes, but this will prevent you from roasting the tomatoes. You can, however, still roast the peppers and garlic.
- Peppers: If you cannot find serrano peppers, substitute with jalapeño.
- Using a grill instead of broiling: You can grill the tomatoes, peppers, and garlic on a barbecue. We recommend using a grill basket over medium-high heat.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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I’ve made this twice. It is very good. The first time with Hatch peppers was my favorite. Second time, delish, but needed a little more heat. I used poplano, serano and jalepeno. Roasting everything is the key!
I usually do a big batch of salsa for canning but my tomatoes aren’t producing enough at the moment. After trying this recipe I will not be going back to my old one. Do you know if it’s been tested for canning stability?
How long does this stay? It’s an awesome recipe.
The salsa will keep covered in the refrigerator for 5-7 days.
Fantastic recipe here! I made this for a family salsa contest for Mother’s Day and it took second place. The only difference is that I went with jalepeno, serrano and poblano peppers and then doubled the recipe. My husband couldnt get enough of it!
I have tried a lot of salsas – but your recipe, especially the method of roasting, created the best Salsa. In fact, I am getting ready to prepare another batch now!!
Melfox – No we did not oil the pan before roasting. After roasting, the ingredients come out of the pan easily and we did not have much cleaning up to do, but if you are concerned, you could certainly lightly oil the bottom of the pan.
~Joanne
i have a few tomatillos in my kitchen at the moment…do you think i should add a few to the tomato salsa? and did you oil the pan before roasting? thanks
Melfox, We personally have never used both tomatoes and tomatillos in the same salsa recipe, but that certainly does not mean it wont work. I bet it would be really flavorful, the tomatoes should give a slightly sweet and light flavor and the tomatillos should give a slightly sharp / tart flavor to the salsa. I looked around on the web and found a Gourmet recipe using both, you should give the combination a try and let us know how it goes. You may want to increase the garlic, but I will leave that up to you.
Good Luck! Joanne
Roasting the tomatoes first is such a great idea. It brings out so much more flavor!
I love the simple ingredients in this salsa but I bet roasting everything first makes them taste that much better! I’ll have to give that a try.