This refreshing and flavorful restaurant-style fire roasted salsa recipe is easy to make with canned tomatoes and chipotle peppers. It’s a thin yet hearty salsa that’s perfect to scoop with chips and serve alongside your favorite Mexican-inspired and Tex-Mex dishes.
This is a very fast and easy roasted tomato salsa recipe that is quick to blend up in just a few minutes! Both simple and convenient, it uses canned fire roasted tomatoes with chipotle peppers… So prep is a breeze, but you still get lots of deep, complex flavors.
I think you’re going to love it.
Recipe Ingredients and Equipment
- Canned tomatoes. I’m diggin’ this product: Muir Glen Fire Roasted tomatoes. If you don’t like the smokey flavor, you can certainly use plain tomatoes. You really should go outside of yourself just this once and give them a try. You can mix and match their assortment of fire roasted flavors (Adobo seasonings- way good). We like heat so I was excited to see the fire roasted tomatoes with Chipotle (pronounced chih-POHT-lay NOT chih-POL-tay). Chipotle peppers are smoked jalapeno peppers.
- Canned tomatoes with chiles. Rotel brand is the most often used. I just happen to see the Hatch brand with a medium heat and thought I’d try it. I liked it.
- Onion. Fresh white onion has great bite with a hint of sweetness.
- Garlic. Pungent and bold, a must-have for the best salsa.
- Serrano chiles. Spicy hot!
- Lime juice. The acid lifts up all of the bold spicy flavors.
- Cilantro. Fresh and bright.
- Cumin and salt. Simple spices that are classic in Mexican recipes.
I think I might have already introduced you to my favorite kitchen toy: The food processor! My husband gave it to me for Christmas. He loves me…this is proof. I get more excited over kitchen toys than shoes. If you have a food processor, use it. If not, you can do this in a blender.
How to Make Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa
- Prepare the fresh ingredients: Mince the garlic, peel and chop the onion, de-seed and chop the jalapeno, juice the lime, and chop the cilantro.
- Combine the canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, chiles, jalapenos, lime juice, cilantro, salt and cumin in the bowl of a food processor.
- Pulse all the ingredients together to desired consistency.
You can serve immediately, or transfer to a container with a lid and refrigerate until ready to use. I like my salsa to have a bit of a cool chill, so I typically keep it in the fridge for an hour or so before enjoying.
Recipe Tips
Remember “mise on place“? Do it. Mince the garlic. I used a garlic press you can smash it then chop it if you’d like. Don’t add the garlic whole, because you will end up with a knicked chunk of garlic in your salsa.
Notice when you cut the chiles in half: Do you see the seeds and veins? You have a choice to make this a mild or spicy fire roasted chipotle salsa recipe. If you love heat, keep them. Now these two tiny Serrano’s pack a lot of heat. If you are a pansy, just use one or opt for a jalapeno.
For a more mild version that still has a bit of heat, simply remove the seeds and veins that are inside the chile. Just take a knife and scrape them out. I guess those little seeds pack a lot of heat in them so removing them will make the salsa milder.
Do not over process the salsa – a little bit of chunky texture is good.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can use either, but prep work is much easier when you use canned tomatoes. Plus, using fire roasted tomatoes means they are jam packed with flavor – with no effort!
As-is my canned tomato salsa recipe is quite spicy. I leave my jalapenos whole without removing the seeds, which really brings the heat! However, you can easily clean out the seeds or skip the chiles entirely if you want.
Pair with crunchy tortilla chips and serve homemade salsa as a side with all your favorite Mexican-style dishes. It is delicious with carne asada tacos or veggie tacos, enchiladas, burritos, tortilla soup, or any flavorful Tex-Mex recipes!
Fire roasted salsa made with canned tomatoes will keep well in the fridge for up to 5 days.
That’s it! See that was quick and easy. Best of all you can adjust the flavors and consistency to your liking. My way is really good. You should try it first. This makes a boat load, about 6 1/2 cups (I measured).
You should make this great salsa for your Cinco de Mayo celebration, or any Tex-Mex night at home. Don’t forget the chunky guacamole, too!
I’m digging in!
You May Also Love
- Spicy Tomato Jam
- Homemade Indian Spiced Ketchup
- White Bean Dip with Pita Chips
- Slow Roasted Tomatoes
- Spicy Sweet Refrigerator Pickles
Fire Roasted Salsa
This refreshing restaurant-style fire roasted tomato salsa recipe is easy to make with canned tomatoes and chipotle peppers.
Ingredients
- 1 28- ounce can Fire Roasted Tomatoes
- 1 14.5- ounce can Fire Roasted with Chipotle Peppers or reg. canned tomatoes
- 1 12- ounce can diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles Rotel
- ½ cup chopped onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1-2 Serrano Chiles
- 1/3 cup lime juice juice from 1 whole lime
- 1 cup cilantro chopped
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cumin
Instructions
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Prepare the fresh ingredients: Mince the garlic, peel and chop the onion, de-seed and chop the jalapeno, juice the lime, and chop the cilantro.
-
Combine the canned tomatoes, onion, garlic, chiles, jalapenos, lime juice, cilantro, salt and cumin in the bowl of a food processor.
-
Pulse all the ingredients together to desired consistency.
Recipe Notes
Fire roasted salsa made with canned tomatoes will keep well in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Could this recipe be canned?
Hi again, Janet. SO nice of you to have taken the time to respond to my question…and so quickly too. Yes, what you said makes total sense. I suspected you did the prep work to avoid an end product of salsa, not soup. Plus a clove of garlic can be a slippery little dude!:D I can't wait to get that processor! When I do, I will return to your posts for more recipes. Thank you! Till then I'll be cutting and chopping by hand for this delicious salsa–in time for Cinco de Mayo 2012. Robin
P.S. I meant to comment on the beautiful photos you included with the recipe. Nice!
Thank you, Robin, for your kind comments. It just hit me that I have made this recipe in a blender as well. If you have a blender, just pulse the ingredients until it reaches the consistency that you want. That way you don't have to spend hours chopping. I used to chop my pico. I was so particular to get the pieces even that it took forever. Then I had a fit when the family ate it in 15 minutes. Good luck.
How many Jalepenos did not see in ingredients but saw in directions.Thank you for sharing going to make in my ninja blender. I DO USE SERRANO I STEAD OD JALEPENOS SONETIMES..THANK YOU.
Hi, Janet. I found this post because I've been searching for information on the Cuisinart 16-cup food processor. Your salsa recipe looks great and I'm anxious to try it. Until I get a food processor like yours, I'll be doing all of the prep work by hand, which leads me to a question…your photos show you cutting the onions and cilantro, etc. and then putting them in the processor bowl. Is there a reason you didn't you use the processor start-to-finish? (It seems like it would be faster, but since I've never owned a food processor I don't know! You probably have a good reason for not using it till the end to pulse everything together.) Thanks for illuminating me!
Yes, there is a reason that I pre-chopped, especially with garlic. If you through in a whole piece of garlic, sometimes it will just spin around the processor and doesn't fully chop. I just wanted to the pieces pulsed to get an even chop. If I threw in the onion and pepper it could take too much processing time to get the consistancy. I didn't want to puree the onion. Does this make sense. Once you get a food processor and play with it you will understand me a bit more. I probably didn't need to chop as fine as I did. It's like when I was the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher??? It just puzzles my husband.
This will keep for a good two weeks in the refrigerator.
How long does this salsa keep for in the fridge?
The Cuisinart was purchased through Williams-Sonoma. It is the newest model# FP-16DC
It is the 16-cup Elite Cuisinart Die-cast food processor. I hope this is enough information.
wich Cuisinart model is it?
Summer! So glad you're blogging. I'll add you to my blogroll. Love your blog. So much fun to see your girls- darling! Great to hear from you.
Of course my #1 food idol has a foodie blog! I cook so many of your divine things all the time, you introduced me to molten cake! I too have one http://www.krazycakelady.blogspot.com so glad I found you!
Summer Perry