Fire-Roasted Salsa

This easy fire-roasted salsa is made with broiled Roma tomatoes, peppers, onion, and garlic mixed with fresh herbs and citrus juice. It’s the perfect summer dip!

It’s tomato season!

Cue the confetti, because I am excited!

I love other fruits and veggies too, but I am a die-hard tomato lover. They are the best.

I wait all year long for summer tomatoes, and plan my entire garden around them. I am legit obsessed.

If you follow along with my Instagram stories, you’ve been watching my tomatoes grow all summer long!

Each summer, when the tomatoes begin to pile up in my kitchen, I make baked tomatoes, slow-roasted cherry tomatoes, tomato corn salad, tomato tarts, and of course, I attempt to make homemade salsa.

And each summer, the salsa is delicious, but it’s always too watery. Until this year.

This year, my salsa was perfect. I’m so excited about it!

Here’s how to make delicious, thick and scoopable fire-roasted salsa from fresh tomatoes and hot peppers.

If you want to try making even more salsa, try this mango habanero salsa next!

How to Make Homemade Salsa That Isn’t Watery

If you’ve ever made homemade salsa, only to realize in dismay that your salsa is floating in an extra two cups of tomato juice, here’s what happened.

It all starts with the type of tomato.

Do not use juicy slicing tomatoes for homemade salsa.

For this fire-roasted salsa, stick to Roma tomatoes or other types of plum tomatoes.

Romas are a type of paste tomato. They’re not juicy and they aren’t the tomatoes you want for a BLT, but they’re perfect for sauces and (you guessed it) salsa!

That said, if you don’t have quite enough Roma tomatoes to make a batch of salsa, it’s okay to add a small percentage of juicier tomatoes to the mixture. But know that the more juicy tomatoes you add, the juicier your salsa will be.

What is Fire-Roasting?

Technically, it’s any type of roasting done with fire.

Cooking food under high heat brings out sweet notes in the food, and the fire adds a subtle smoky flavor.

Yes, you can fire-roast your vegetables on a grill or in a campfire, but for this recipe I used the oven broiler.

Why? Because it’s faster and takes less effort.

If you’re using a gas oven broiler, then these salsa veggies are roasted under a flame, and are actually fire-roasted. If you’re using an electric oven, there won’t be an actual flame, but we’ll call it “close enough.”

That said, if you prefer to char your vegetables on a grill or in a campfire, I recommend modifying this recipe and leaving the vegetables whole (not cut) for roasting. After charring, you can follow the recipe directions exactly.

How To Get the Best Tasting Salsa

For the best tasting salsa, you need to use flavorful tomatoes.

Fire-roasting the vegetables will bring out more flavor notes, and it can make “okay” tasting tomatoes taste better, but it will not fix a flavorless tomato!

If your tomatoes taste like water before fire-roasting, they’ll taste like smoky water after fire-roasting, and your salsa will be bland.

How Hot Is this Fire-Roasted Salsa?

The heat level is up to you.

For this salsa, I recommend using a poblano pepper and a jalapeño pepper.

Poblano peppers are mildly spicy. If you want, you could swap the poblano pepper for a sweet bell pepper.

Jalapeño peppers are hotter than poblanos, but add a lot of flavor to the salsa. If you want less heat, I recommend removing both the seeds and the membrane (a lot of the heat is actually in the membrane, not just the seeds!).

Additionally, you can try adding a small amount of the jalapeño pepper to the final salsa mixture, tasting it, and adding more if desired.

If you want to increase the heat, add extra jalapeño peppers and leave the seeds and membrane.

You can also experiment with different (hotter) hot peppers, but I recommend proceeding with caution when fire-roasting hotter chili peppers.

The peppers will release fumes that can harm your lungs, so you want lots of ventilation. Turn on the vent over your oven, and maybe even open a window or door while roasting.

Preparing Your Veggies Before Fire-Roasting

When I fire-roast veggies in the oven, I like to prepare them a little before roasting. Preparing them ahead of time (instead of roasting them whole) means two things.

First, it means there’s no need to flip the vegetables over while broiling.

And second, it means there’s less hands-on work while the veggies are piping hot.

Start by slicing the tomatoes in half lengthwise.

Prepare the poblano pepper by removing the seeds and cutting it in half. Cut the jalapeño pepper in half, and then remove the seeds and membrane if desired.

Peel a red onion and cut it into wedges. Remove a few garlic cloves from a head of garlic (but leave them peeled).

Add all the veggies cut-side down to a baking sheet. You might need to use two baking sheets and broil in batches.

How to Make Fire-Roasted Salsa

Broil the vegetables until they begin to blacken.

If you’re using two baking sheets, broil them one at a time.

Next, peel as much of the skin off the poblano pepper as possible. Poblano skins tend to be bitter, so it’s better to take them off the pepper.

Peel the garlic. The roasted garlic clove should pop right out of the peel.

Leave the charred skins on the tomatoes and jalapeños.

Next, add all the vegetables to a food processor and use the chop setting to mix everything together.

I use a KitchenAid 5-cup food processor, which is just a little bit too small for the entire batch of salsa. If your food processor is also too small, it’s totally fine to work in batches.

Next, transfer the salsa to a large bowl.

Stir in fresh lime (or lemon) juice, some chopped cilantro (or oregano), a teaspoon of ground cumin, and a little salt. Taste the salsa, and add more if desired.

Now you’ve come to the hard part.

Waiting.

If possible, make this salsa the day before you serve it. It will taste good right away, but the flavors will really improve as the salsa rests in the fridge overnight.

Serve your salsa the next day, along with your favorite tortilla chips, and enjoy this delicious taste of summer!