When your garden is bursting with late summer tomatoes, make this Garden Fresh Salsa! This recipe uses 2 pounds of fresh tomatoes, plus any sweet and spicy peppers that may be hanging out in the garden! Garlic, lime and cilantro make this pico de gallo style salsa everybody's favorite!
- Tomato Season! - The star of the garden, summer tomatoes are on the menu all through August! This Garden Fresh Salsa is a great way to use a good amount of them fresh but check out my 21 Ways to Use Garden Tomatoes without Canning! Then we like to make this Freezer Pizza Sauce and this Roasted Tomato Basil Soup for the freezer!
- Healthy and Fresh! - This is a simple hand-chopped, loaded with veggies, fresh tomato salsa! It's super healthy as a snack with chips, or added to Ground Beef Fajita Tacos!
- If you Love this Summer Salsa, try my Peach Corn Salsa and this Cherry Tomato Pico de Gallo!
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Ingredients & Substitutions
Basic salsa ingredients pack so much amazing flavor when summer produce is at its best!
- Tomato - This is a garden or farmer's market recipe, so use whatever kind of tomatoes you're growing! Any variety of tomatoes will work, including some cherry tomatoes.
- Peppers - I like to use a combination of sweet and spicy peppers, and again, use what you have! We always grow an assortment of peppers that are often more unique that grocery store peppers. But all are fine, including any color bell pepper, small mini sweet peppers, and 1 jalapeño or other spicy pepper, depending on how spicy you like your salsa! I used a jalapeño that had already turned from green to red.
- Onion & Garlic - I didn't grow these, but if you did, use them! You can use really any type of onion, white, yellow or red. It's best to use fresh garlic!
- Cilantro - We grew a lot of cilantro this year, but the timing never matched the tomatoes! Early cilantro, late tomatoes, so this bunch is from the store. Either way, you want to use a good amount of fresh chopped cilantro!
- Lime - Fresh lime juice pulls it all together and gives you that bright acidity.
- Salt - Very important in salsa, salt enhances the natural flavors of all that produce. Start with a little and adjust to your taste. I recommend using ½ to 1 teaspoon for this amount of salsa. I used ¾ teaspoon.
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
This is hand-chopped fresh ingredient salsa! Just chop, mix and serve!
Step 1 - Wash well and chop your tomatoes, removing the stem end and any bad spots.
Use a sharp knife for tomatoes so the water doesn't get mushed out of them!
Step 2 - Chop your peppers, onions, garlic and cilantro and add all ingredients to a large bowl.
Step 3 - Gently mix the salsa until just incorporated and serve or refrigerate.
Helpful Tips
- Use a Sharp Knife - So important when chopping a lot of tomatoes! A sharp knife makes all the difference! If you don't have a knife sharpener, at least run the blade along the honing steel that's in your knife block! A serrated bread knife works too.
- My Salsa is Watery! - Yes, garden fresh salsa is watery, because tomatoes contain so much water! This is not a bad thing or a big deal. Using a sharp knife helps the tomato retain its liquid as you chop, but the salt in the recipe will also draw the water out. The longer the salsa sits, the more water will come out. Again, not a problem! Just scoop your salsa, you can drain off the liquid or just leave it in the bowl. That flavored tomato-y liquid is delicious, add it to your taco meat, I even drink it!
- Adjustable and Customizable - This recipe uses 2 pounds of garden tomatoes, which is a lot of salsa! You certainly don't need to make that much, you can really start with any amount of tomatoes. Your other ingredients can also be added more or less to taste. The peppers and amount of spicy peppers are optional and customizable to your taste! I used what we had hanging out in the garden!
- Ways to Serve - A big bowl of homemade tomato salsa and chips can be a dinner side dish or party appetizer! It's perfect for any type of taco night, burritos, nachos or rice bowls!
- Storage - This fresh salsa is of course, best eaten fresh! It will last in the fridge a few days, but it will get more and more watery the longer it sits. You can add this flavorful liquid to taco meat or crockpot shredded chicken tacos!
Recipe FAQs
Yes, you can freeze fresh salsa, but it will change the texture and consistency when it is thawed. Since this recipe is a great way to use up an abundance of garden tomatoes, freezing is a great way to preserve them. You can eat the thawed salsa with chips as you would fresh, but you may want to add it to crockpot chicken tacos, ground beef taco meat, or baked over nachos. This will cook the salsa slightly, if the frozen and thawed texture bothers you. If you do freeze this salsa in glass jars, or any container, only fill ¾'s full to allow room for expansion as it freezes.
The heat level of this salsa depends on the amount and type of spicy peppers you use. If you want a mild salsa, you can omit the jalapeño, or just start with a small amount and add more and taste as you go.
Yes, you could make this salsa in a food processor, but it will likely be more watery! If you do use a blender or a food processor, start with all ingredients except the tomatoes. Chop them into chunks and just pulse them, don't puree, and transfer them to a bowl. Then add the tomatoes, cut into chunks and again just pulse them a few times so they stay chunky. Then gently mix everything with a spoon in a bowl. I prefer hand chopping for this salsa.
Fresh tomato salsa, or pico de gallo, will last 2 or 3 days in the fridge, but is best eaten fresh or the following day. It will become more watery the longer it sits. After a few days its fine to add it to cooking taco meat!
No, you do not need to peel or deseed tomatoes for this Garden Fresh Salsa. This is a pico de gallo style, hand-chopped salsa. If you want to gently squeeze out some of the seeds, water, and gel in the tomatoes you can, but it is not necessary.
Try These Garden Recipes Next!
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Garden Fresh Salsa
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Print Pin RateIngredients
- 4 to 5 cups fresh garden tomatoes diced (2 pounds)
- ½ cup onion diced
- ½ cup bell pepper diced (any non-spicy pepper)
- 1 jalapeño pepper minced
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- ½ fresh lime juice
- ⅓ cup fresh cilantro loosely packed and chopped
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Wash your fresh veggies well. Chop the tomatoes with a sharp knife, removing the stem end and any bad spots.
- Chop and add all other ingredients to the tomatoes in a bowl and mix gently to combine.
- Serve fresh, or store in the fridge.
Notes
- Tomatoes - Use any variety of garden tomatoes you have. They do not need to be peeled or deseeded. Use a sharp knife to chop them.
- Peppers - Use any combination of spicy and non spicy peppers that you have. Add as much or as little heat as you like. Or start with a little of the jalapeño and taste and add more as you go.
- Watery Salsa - Tomatoes contain a lot of water, so this salsa is on the watery side! This is ok! Chopping the tomatoes with a sharp knife will help them retain water, you can also drain the water off if you want to.
- Storage and Freezing - This salsa is best eaten fresh but will keep in the fridge for a couple days. It will become more watery the longer it sits. Fresh salsa can be frozen, but the texture and consistency will be different after being thawed. Thawed salsa is great to throw into taco meat or crockpot chicken tacos!
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