Use fresh tomatoes to make this easy recipe for freezer blender salsa – it's even better than what you'll get at Mexican restaurants! This can be made with an immersion blender or food processor too.
If you've been following along on Instagram, you might know that we had a backyard garden for the first time this year. I knew from the get go that we wanted lots of tomatoes.
But, I didn't quite plan for the amount we had.
We had our garden put in in the late spring, so I knew I had to get going on planting ASAP if I wanted a garden this year. The weekend after it was ready to go, we headed to Lowe's for our plants – mindlessly, we threw 15 (yes, 15) tomato plants in our cart. I don't know what we were thinking!
I'm not one to waste things, so we planted all of them. Needless to say, we've been absolutely swimming in tomatoes lately. There are only so many tomato sandwiches that you can eat, so I've been trying to come up with creative ways to preserve them to enjoy all year.
Little did I know that you can actually freeze salsa! We go through at least a jar of salsa a month, so this was the perfect solution for a big batch of garden tomatoes. This recipe tastes so incredibly fresh, even after it's been thawed. The cilantro and onion flavors added at the end really give it a pop that it needs to taste even better than the kind you find at Mexican restaurants. I love this – I could snack on it every day!
Here's how you can make a big batch of freezer blender salsa for yourself.
(Better Than Restaurant) Freezer Blender Salsa
Ingredients
- 15-20 tomatoes
- 2 bell peppers
- 1 large red onion
- 1 large white onion
- 4-5 jalapeno peppers stems and seeds removed
- 6 oz tomato paste
- 1 bunch cilantro stems removed
- 1 cup lime juice
- 4 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp pepper
- 1 red onion
- 1/2 bunch cilantro
Instructions
- Core tops of tomatoes and cut an "x" in the bottom of the skin. Place in boiling water for 2-3 minutes - immediately remove and place in an ice bath. Allow tomatoes to cool and (easily) take off skins.
- Puree tomatoes in a blender. Pour into a large stock pot.
- Roughly chop the remaining ingredients, reserving 1 red onion and 1/2 bunch cilantro for the end. Place ingredients in the blender and puree. Add to tomato mixture in stock pot.
- Put stock pot over medium heat until mixture lightly boils. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 3-4 hours, until salsa has reduced by about 1/3. Stir occasionally.
- Cool salsa. Puree reserved red onion and cilantro in your blender and mix into salsa. Pour into quart-sized freezer bags (this recipe made roughly a gallon of salsa for me). Freeze for up to 6 months.
Enjoy, friends!
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Could you do this if you used cannned 🍅?
You sure can!
Canning experts warn you not to can tomato recipes that have too high of a ph. Salsa recipes for canning have either vinegar, lime juice, or lemon juice to lower the ph. Sorry, I don’t agree with your answer.
Yes, and you have to use bottle lemon or lime juice to reach the ph level you need. I checked with our county master gardeners/canners on year when we were going to use fresh lemons.
The question was not “can you can?” But rather “can you use canned 🍅?” as in, canned tomatoes. Your answer Thomas, does not relate to the question.
I have made this 4 times now with all my tomatoes. The only change I made was to decrease the salt, but other than that, this salsa is delicious!!! Thank you so much for sharing the recipe!
So glad you’re loving it, Julene!
I did t have time to summer this all day so I used my InstaPot. It came out so yummy! My family loves it. I just finished my second batch which I doubled because I had so much produce from my garden. I even added some sweet banana peppers to this batch. Delicious! Thanks for sharing this recipe.
Sounds amazing! I love the idea of banana peppers, I bet that was a great addition.
How long in the instant pot?
Could you can this recipe? Like waterbath for 45 mins? 🤔
I don’t see why not! I’m not really familiar with the canning process, but I’ve had salsas that were canned before.
Check out recipes for canned salsa, you will need to add vinegar or bottled lemon juice. We checked w/our county master gardeners/canners for the answer some years ago. Just made this for the freezer, it’s awesome!
Can you substitute apple cider vinegar for lime juice?
That should give you the acid you need in the recipe, but I can’t speak to the flavor.
When I have used apple cider vinegar I think the end product is too sweet.
Could you use a slow cooker?
I don’t think that would be an issue, but it might not get quite as hot as needed (meaning it won’t thicken up as much).
My daughter and I made this salsa yesterday and it’s the best we’ve ever made! We used approximately 10 pounds of tomatoes and for us, we kept the seeds in the jalapenos. And we only used 1 TBSP salt. Awesome flavor and it definitely is medium + in spiciness. Yummy! Our yield was about 20 cups.
Thank you!! No more canning!
BEST SALSA WE’VE EVER MADE! When I moved to Oregon in late 2012 and tomato season came along in 2013, my daughter and I started canning salsa. I decided that this year we were not canning (so much work!) and began looking for recipes. Yours hit the spot and today, after making about 25 cups last week, we can both heartily say, “Best Ever”! And the only modification we made is we left the seeds in the jalapenos. The whole process (outside of the 4-hour cooking on stovetop), was done and cleaned up in 3.5 hours, half the time of canning and 99% less mess! We’ve found our ‘keeper’ recipe and wanted to come back here and thank you! Barb & Sara
I’m so glad you loved it, Barb and Sara! Thanks for the kind review. 🙂
Can I leave the skins on the tomatoes?
That shouldn’t be an issue, since you’re blending it.
This was good but we found it to be too salty! I would definitely decrease the salt especially when serving with tortilla chips!
This is such a time saver and delish! I will surely make this again. Thanks for the recipe.
This sounds good, but we prefer raw salsa. Would this recipe freeze (and thaw well) if uncooked?
I don’t know that I’d recommend freezing from raw, just because of the texture – raw veggies never seem to freeze well if you’re thawing to eat still raw.