Easy Homemade Garden Salsa

When we have tomatoes and other fresh ingredients from our garden we love making easy homemade garden salsa.

The advantages of homemade garden salsa

I’ve always loved salsa, but only recently did I start making my own homemade version. The advantages of homemade salsa vs. store-bought salsa are:

 

• You get to be totally in control of the ingredients. This is a big benefit in today’s day in age when you really have to read the label carefully if you want to know what your family is ingesting.
• It’s a great way to use fresh tomatoes and garden ingredients
• Freshness. It’s hard to beat straight from the garden. And homegrown means  you know exactly what did and did not (nasty chemicals) go into growing your food

What ingredients are great to use in a homemade salsa?

Many of the ingredients in salsa most people already have in their garden or can easily find at a farmer’s market (or store, but fresh is better).  Our summer garden has passed its prime, but we still have roma tomatoes, jalapenos, and cilantro.  It will be sad when we can no longer enjoy fresh summer produce and fresh homemade salsa, but we usually still end up making it with store-bought roma tomatoes.

We have made this with roma, cherry, and small regular tomatoes so you have options.  I like it the most with fresh roma tomatoes, but we had many more cherry tomatoes and little tomato runts to use this summer. So, we’ve made it with any and all types.  It was maybe slightly more liquidy with the cherry tomatoes, but still very good.

If you are looking for really spicy salsa, make sure you add some of the seeds of the jalapeno pepper–or even a spicier type of pepper.  Our family definitely is probably on the wimpier side of the spicy scale, so no seeds for us. If you’re not sure what pepper is right for you then be sure to check out Chowhounds ultimate pepper guide.

Uses for homemade salsa

We use this salsa for so many things.  Obviously, we can devour it with chips, but it can also be used to top scrambled eggs or a frittata, any sort of taco, Chipotle-style rice bowls, etc.

Canning and storing

This garden salsa lasts for 5-7 days in the fridge (if not consumed faster than that).  I think it’s best on day 2.

Many people can fresh salsa to enjoy all year long.  I am not a canner (yet), so I have no experience with that although I know lots of people do it.  Most salsas don’t do well in the freezer due to the wateriness when thawing and raw tomatoes not doing well in the freezer.  However, if you are going to freeze it, this could be simmered for 5-10 minutes and then frozen.

If you like this then you’ll definitely want to check out our roasted tomatillo salsa verde.

If you want to try making your own salsa you might want to also check out these homemade salsa secrets.