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This recipe came from my Granny. Literally, she told me over the phone and I have it scribbled down on a scrap piece of paper. I haven’t misplaced it because it is the best homemade cooked salsa I have ever eaten. Trust me, that’s saying something. I live in Texas and eat Mexican food at least once a week. Seriously, I know my salsa. A great thing about this recipe is that you can use what you have. If you like Anaheim peppers or banana peppers go ahead use them, tweak it to your liking. Chunky, smooth, hot, mild, it’s your salsa, have fun with it. This recipe makes about 4-5 quart jars and, even so, they never seem to last longer than a few weeks in our household. So you can easily skip the canning part and just stick them straight in the fridge to use within a month.
All the fresh veggies in this recipe (except for the onions) are courtesy of hubby DT and his wonderful veggie garden. This recipe is excellent with garden veggies or store bought and it’s super simple to make.
Ingredients: 3 quarts tomatoes (fresh or canned), 3 cups onions, 3 cups bell peppers, 1/2 cup banana peppers (optional), 1/3 cup vinegar, 1/4 cup sugar, 3 T canning salt (regular salt is fine), 3-4 jalapenos (or more if you like it extra spicy)
Chop your tomatoes to your preference. I like a chunky salsa so I chopped them pretty big, if not chop into small pieces.
I am using the varieties of tomatoes we planted this year. We have standard celebrity, medium sized delicious red tomatoes, lemon boy, the ripe yellow tomatoes, and my new favorites the yellow pear tomatoes. See those little cute pear shaped tomatoes? Aren’t they cute? That, and they are sweet as can be.
Measure and add all the chopped tomatoes to a large stock pot
Dice onions and add to pot
Then dice your bell peppers, start by cutting the top off
Then pop out the stem and seeds and discard.
then cut the pepper in half, and then in julienne strips
and then again cross way to dice.
Next cut the tops off of the banana peppers and dice the same as bell peppers
*these are optional, but delicious.
add the peppers to the stock pot
Next the jalapenos.
If you have sensitive fingers like me always wear gloves. Though oddly enough, I always forget to wear gloves and inevitably touch my eyes hours later and they still burn.
*with gloves on*
Cut the tops off the jalapenos and cut lengthwise.
Then scrape the seeds and white membrane out with a spoon
*note no gloves, trust me I paid for this later.
Then stack the two pieces on top of each other
and julienne
then dice and add to the pot.
Then add 1/4 cup sugar
and 1/3 cup vinegar
and 3 Tablespoons salt
Stir well and set to medium high heat
Stir every few minutes
Turn off once onions are translucent, and peppers are a dull green, about 15-20 minutes.
Also, taste a few of the onions and bell peppers to make sure they are completely cooked and al dente.
If you like a smoother salsa, use a stick blender.
It smells so good while it’s cooking, just try to refrain from eating it while its still hot, I know we can’t.
Serve with chips, or on your favorite dish. Enjoy!
Print This RecipeHomemade Salsa
3 quarts tomatoes (canned diced tomatoes is fine)
3 cups onions
3 cups bell peppers
1/2 cup banana peppers
1/3 cup vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons canning salt (regular salt is fine)
3-4 jalapenos (or more if you like it extra spicy)
Chop all veggies in size preference, smaller for smoother salsa, larger for chunkier salsa. Cook on medium high heat for 15-20 minutes until veggies are soft and peppers are a dull green. Either save in fridge for eating within 2 weeks or process in quart jars in a water bath for 5-10 minutes until jars are sealed and will be shelf stable.
This post listed @ Eat at Home
YUM!! We have never made cooked salsa before, and I was just telling Stu last night that we need to try out some new tomato-based recipes. Nice!!
Homemade salsa is the best!!
Between the job and the garden and the cooking and the twins and the blog how on EARTH do you have time for homemade salsa??
YUM! That looks good! I had no idea it was really that easy to make…I’m always buying the jarred stuff!
Guess what?? We have a few tiny baby zucchinis starting to grow!! I nearly peed in my pants when I saw them…the kids were screaming they were so excited!! Nothing else is growing yet but the baby zucchinis made my day! I’ll have to take a pic and post them!
That looks really good! You must have a wonderful garden.
I haven’t ever tried making homemade salsa, but this looks delicious!
my god that sounds heavnly!
This looks great. My son has been looking for a salsa recipe. He wants to make his own when his garden comes in.
This looks delicious. Do you every try freezing it? I’m wondering if that would work as well as canning . . .
This looks so delicious! Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Salsa is one of my musts in life. Must eat, must make, must have to survive!
Great post 😉 and recipe.
oh my, that salsa looks good, i’d love to take a dip. Thanks for the well wishes
Yummy! We make a lot of homeade salsa in our family, but your recipe is different. I’ll have to try it sometime.
Soon we’ll be able to make salsa with veggies ALL from our very own garden! Stuff is just starting to come up and I’m doing the happy dance!
Thanks for joining in on Real Food Wednesday! I also stumbled your post!
Kelly
I LOVE making fresh salsa! I’ve never put banana peppers in mine, though. I must add them!
You know us Texans.. we love our salsa 😉
Nothing better than homemade salsa!!! Happy Foodie Friday! Have a great weekend ~ Susan
What a grand recipe. I absolutely love chunky salsa and yours looks perfect.
Ah, finally something healthy while I’m trying to return to my original weight! Thank you for this awesome post. Head on over to my blog and browse a while, if you like what you see, click the “follow” button on the right so we can inspire one another often!
Your salsa looks great, I love homemade salsa. Thanks for the recipe
So glad to see this recipe. Need a good salsa recipe for when my garden is at its peak. 😉
Oh, this looks delicious! And, we are trying our hand at a small garden this year. Many of the ingredients are in our garden (or will be!). I will have to try it out- my husband and I will probably be scraping the bowl together!
Great step-by-step photos!!!
Awesome!
Oh Yum! Looks awesome! Thanks for sharing!
~Liz
Holy smokes that looks good! I love all the pictures you included for us. 🙂
Thanks for participating in my Favorite Ingredients Friday- Greatest Hits Edition recipe exchange. I’m doing a Weight Watcher’s Edition today!
That recipe looks delicious…I just had a lady from Mexico make my some salsa for my brothers birthday, but she speaks little english and she gave it to me in an ice cream container. I don’t need it for 2 more weeks, any thoughts on how to store it?
I lost this recipe one tme and I tried a different one .This recipe is very hard to top. Glad I found it again.
WOW!!! I am currently cooking as I type…. lol I added corn and just used Jalepenos instead of the banana peppers. I like it hot!!! Damn it smells sooooooo good in here. I made a double batch!!! Thanks sooooooo much!!!
Tony
I have 15 quart jars ready for this stuff!!! Yeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaa!!!!
I never made salsa before but would like to try it. When you say to can in quart jars & refrigerate—do you give it a hot water bath after it is in the jars or is cooking it the same as if you would give it a hot water bath?? Also, do the jars seal or is that why rou keep it in the frige?? See, I’m a newby at this! I can pickles but have always been afraid to do tomatoes. Thanks!
you can sterilize the jars and then poor it in while hot and seal the jars. No one seems to do this anymore, but my mom always made chili sauce and jarred it. and it satyed on a shelf all winter. Never any problems, just have to make sure the jars seal.:) i’m anxious to try this:)
I made this last night but i tweaked it a little, it turned out fantastic, I just sterilized my jars, poured in hot salsa, sealed and put upside down(like my mother told me:))overnight, and about three hrs later everything was sealed:) my daughter asked if she could have chips and salsa for breakfast this morning lol:)
@Renee, Renee, i posted how i do it but just wanted to make sure you got it. put your jars in the sink with boiling water to sterilize along with lids and seals, take them out and add hot salsa while jars are still hot. put lids and on and turn upside down until the next day, when you check them they will be sealed and won’t need refrigeration, (as long as you have vinegar or some sort of acidity in the jar.) hope this helps.
I have looked at alot of receipes and this one sounds the best. Someone told me to go to wal-mart and buy a packet of seasoning to add to it ,do i need to do that?
just made two batches of it… i tweaked it a bit by using our garden tomatoes, but boy did it turn out wonderful…THANK YOU!!
My husband and I tried your Salsa recipie we added some garlic and cilantro and it was fantastic.
Hi – I’ve looked at a lot of recipes, and this seems great and easy! If canning to keep – can you do this without a water bath? Just pouring in the boiling salsa? THANKS!!
I’ve always used the mixes for canning my salsa but they never tasted quite fresh enough. I had a whole mess of tomatoes, and peppers from my garden so when I saw your recipe I decided I wanted to make a healthier and tastier salsa. I tweeked it a little bit, adding chopped green chilies instead of the jalapenos, and chopped red onion instead of white. I also added a little bit of lime juice, cilantro, and garlic. and white vinegar instead of cider vinegar. It was fantastic. I canned it and my one son (I too am the mother of grown twins) came to the house and started eating it right out of the kettle before I even got it in the jars and canned. Quodos and thank you for the out of this world salsa recipe. This is my go to recipe from now on!
I also would like to thank you for this extremely tasty salsa recipe. I was on the hunt for a good one and what your salsa called for was exactly what I wanted in mine. I finished it yesterday and canned it for future use and already have friends and family asking when we can try it! Thanks again for posting this!!
Great pics, just finished cutting up the veggies, let the salsa-ing begin.
Since I know that the balance of vinegars, etc is important to the safety in canning, I wondered if you have any recipe suggestions for making a salsa for canning with the addition of black beans and corn? I had store bought one that was really good, but would like to make my own. Thanks, Mary
I have done this Salsa 5 times not and EVRY time it has come out PERFECT! Word to the wise, for best results I use the BEST Jalapino peppers I can find. Of course the fresher the ingrediants the better, but the “BITE” comes from the best peppers. GREAT RECIPE
P.S. Canning smanning… Mine is normally gone before it has a chance to go bad. I put it in sealed containers and my friends and family love it
Wonderful recipe. I added finely chopped zuchini squash and it was terrific. You said to add everything I had in the garden. Thanks so much
I made this recipe twice last year. I sold many of the jars that I canned at my farm market. I also gave lots of jars away. It took me days to find this website again since you are not the number one hit for salsa recipes. But you should be. This is THE BEST salsa recipe on the web today. I am getting ready to put my apron on and make tons of this stuff. I should have about 50 jars when I am finished.
And this time I m adding you to my favorites so I can find you easier.
@Vicki, I have the same story! lol
I ended up searching pics and recognized the tomato picture.
@Julie Floyd, So glad you found it again and had so much success with it last year. Thank you for your kind comments and I hope you will stop by again!
I tried you salsa recipe and I loved it, I only made two changes….I added minced garlic and nacho cheese, so now I have cheesy salsa!! YUM!! I am now on the second batch but I will not be adding cheese to this batch. Thanks for posting such a great recipe. 😉
Side note::: I use my salsa in our spaghetti, lasagna, as a sauce for pizza, etc.
That looks so delicious. I’ve never made homemade salsa. I don’t know why, because my husband would love it!
YUM! Those garden veggies look pretty enough to be in a magazine…just beautiful. And your salsa looks delicious too! Thanks so much for linking up to this week’s Recipe Round-Up. Come back and see us! 🙂
This is some seriously yummy salsa!!! When I googled how to make homemade salsa I got hundreds of recipes, I’m so glad decided on this one! Thank you so much for sharing 🙂
Love this, I pealed the skins off the tomatoes, and added some pineapple, with a little cumin and cayenne pepper, (add a little sweet and spice). Not that you need anything to this great recipe.
Sweet Pea, this recipe looks delicious, I can almost smell it. I look forward to reading your posts. I’m glad you’re still calling yourself a newly wed, that’s so sweet. I feel the same way myself even though I’ve been married for 32 years.
Doubled the recipe and followed to a T. Wonderful!! Thanks for sharing your recipe! Had everything in my and my neighbor’s garden.
salsa recipe
I was looking for a recipe for homemade salsa and came across your beautiful posting. I’m a 20-plus year old single man (20 + 51!) and am not all that handy around the kitchen. I had a BUMPER crop of tomatoes this year here in central Minnesota, and love salsa, and was wondering what I could do with all those tomatoes.
Your descriptions and wonderful photos will be so helpful, not just for the salsa, but for other cooking I’d like to do also. You can be very proud of the nice job you did with your recipe!! Thank you very much. —Al
Hi and thanks for sharing this recipe. I love the pictures describing step by step of the process. I like to make a spicy salsa and was wondering if I could replace the bell peppers for serrano chiles or if this will affect the result. Also, can I can this salsa? Regards
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I just wanted to know if you have made more than enough before and put it away for later use. Any recommendations on storing it?
Either save in fridge for eating within 2 weeks or process in quart jars in a water bath for 5-10 minutes until jars are sealed and will be shelf stable. I actually haven’t personally canned this recipe, because we always eat it so fast. But I’ve had others have great success canning this recipe, look in the comments section.
I just picked a bumper crop of tomatoes from my garden, along with banana peppers! I am not a fan of cilantro, so my google search led me to your recipe! I am also not a fan of bell peppers, but LOVE banana, hot peppers, etc. Do you have a suggestion if I wanted to omit the bell peppers?
Barbara- Yes just substitute the banana peppers for the bell peppers. I have done this before and it comes out fantastic!
I just came across your recipe and am anxious to try it. I wonder if it would be safer to pressure can it instead of water bath canning it. Some of the vegetables in it are low acid and I am not sure that the 1/2 cup of vinegar is enough to raise the acidity of the recipe to make it safe from botulism. Modern tomatoes are also lower acid. Other salsa recipes that I have used recommend pressure canning the jars for 25 minutes at 15psi. I have a background in microbiology and when I can and preserve foods I try to make sure that I am doing it safely.
Hi Kathy, absolutely use your pressure canner. I have never canned this recipe before, but I know others have with great success, but please do what you feel most comfortable with. Hope you enjoy the recipe.
i just made this recipe it made so much i cleaned out two jars from fridge and cleaned them out in hot water and filled the clean jars full then put the cleaned lids on and let sit for an hour or two to cool if i put in the fridge and keep it in the fridge will i be ok .letting it cool with the lids on on the counter for an hour or two or will this cause any problems with botchalism
Absolutely, they should be just fine as long as kept refrigerated!! I hope you enjoy!
Thank you so much for this recipe!! We made some a few weeks ago and are making it again tomorrow. We plan on leaving the seeds in the jalepenos to spice it up a bit!!
Heather- so glad you guys enjoyed it, and making it spicier too, yum!!
This is our first year with a garden and we have so many tomatoes we dont know what to do with them all. I found this recipe and tried it and loved it! Is it possible to make large batches and freeze instead of canning? If so how long will it keep in the freezer.
@katy, Katy I am not sure about it in the freezer, as I haven’t tried it. But I have frozen tomatoes whole and had great success, so maybe you could try that. And then make the salsa when your ready for it. If you are worried about it making too much, you could always cut the recipe in half. https://www.newlyweds-blog.com/2010/07/05/freezing-tomatoes/
I had my doubts about adding 3 Tablespoons of salt. Seemed like too much. And it was way too much salt. Don’t know if that measurement is correct or not.
So sorry it was too much salt for your liking. But the recipe is correct and that is the way I’ve been making it for years. Always seemed like the perfect amount to me. And the beauty of making your own is you can make it how you like it. You can always add some no salt added canned tomatoes to it if you feel it’s too salty.
I absolutely love it!!!! thanks for sharing
Thanks so much for this receipe! It is better than store bought like my grandson said. I did cut back on salt as I cant have a lot of salt and it didn’t change the receipe.
Thank you for sharing this recipe! I have been searching for a simple salsa that I could make with ingredients from the garden. I am excited to try it! Looks great and sounds delicious! Thanks again.
This is by far the best recipe ever. I have been making this for the past 3-4 years and have people begging for me to give them jars of homemade salsa. I can’t say that it turns out the same each year because I usually eyeball everything. I also at tomatillos, and make sure I have a good portion of yellow and orange tomatoes. The kids love it. I’ll be making and canning mine tomorrow. It’s an all day thing because I make numerous quarts and pints to give away and so that we have plenty to last a year until I make it again. I eyeball the salt to but make sure I “taste” it before it gets too salty. I’ve never had a problem with spoilage, so I guess I’ve done something right. I process them longer, probably 20-30 minutes. Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks for sharing this Beth. Makes my day!! Have a fun canning day tomorrow. I can smell it now.
Can you tell me if I can omit the sugar? I can’t have sugar but so much want to try the recipe. Thanks!
Yes you sure can leave the sugar out. Hope you enjoy the recipe.
@Sweet Pea,
I am going to make it tomorrow. I will let you know how it turns out. Thanks so much for sharing! It looks soo yummy I cannot wait to try it out!
I will try this tomorrow, and i will come back and write how it turn out. Is this ok to put in bottle/canning? Thanks for sharing this recipe…. God bless
Tried this today and love it! I used home grown tomatoes and added cilantro, garlic and 1 tsp. of cumin. We prefer a smooth salsa, so ok put it in the blender and just pulsed it a few time before I poured in canning jars. This recipe is a keeper.
This basic recipe is just what I was looking for today! I just finished it, and it tastes wonderful. I will be saving this for next year! I have tried a lot of salsa recipes in the past, and know I am finally done looking! Thanks
Just made your salsa for my son’s class, but it looks real runny, will it thicken up after it cools?
This looks delicious and I can’t wait to try it! I did have a question, since I’ll be using canned tomatoes, do I need to drain them first or just use everything in the can? Thanks!!
I would drain the cans first.