This oven roasted salsa recipe is one of my favorite ways to use fresh tomatoes from my garden. This recipe takes fresh salsa to an entirely different category.  There isn't a salsa out there as good as this oven roasted salsa.  Trust me.

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Last summer, we had a bumper crop of tomatoes.  I canned tomatoes, sliced tomatoes and cooked sauces with tomatoes. We still had tomatoes coming out of our ears. One thing I had not tried to make was salsa.

Michael wanted me to make some homemade salsa. I thought I would look it up and find a good recipe.  Only... have you tried to look up salsa recipes? There are thousands!

I got the general idea of it and decided I would come up with my own way of making salsa.

Finding the perfect recipe for oven roasted salsa was harder than I thought.

I made the first batch by just chopping everything up and mixing it together.  It was good, but not great. There wasn't enough spice and there was no heat at all.  It was just plain bland.  It was almost too watery.

The second time I tried it, I thought I would season it heavier and add some cut up jalapenos.  The heat factor was better, but again it was still bland. Even with the heavier seasonings it tasted too much like we were just eating raw tomatoes, not salsa.

I searched online again for some inspiration.  I was doing something wrong, I just didn't know what that was.

While I was searching for salsa recipes, a rogue recipe for an oven roasted sheet pan dinner came along.

Cue light bulb!

What if I roasted the vegetables in the oven first and then made them into salsa?  That would help with the watery factor and give the flavors of the vegetables time to mature into something better than what I was doing.

Little did I know that this oven roasted salsa would rock our world.  Oh my goodness it's good.

​Now when I say oven roasted salsa, don't freak out and think that this is a recipe that is going to take forever.  It adds about 30 minutes to your prep time but trust me, oven roasted salsa is soo worth it.

This oven roasted salsa recipe is super simple and requires pretty minimal prepping.  If you have a vegetable garden, some of this stuff will be in your garden!

When I make a batch of this oven roasted salsa, I make a pretty big batch because it doesn't last long! I make the salsa in the blender and I like to make a whole blender-full at a time.

You'll need 6-8 large tomatoes to dice up. You'll also be cutting up a medium-sized yellow onion.  These are the vegetables that you are going to roast.

You'll also need a jalapeno pepper (fresh is best), 1 handful of cilantro, 1 heaping tablespoon of chopped garlic, 1 heaping tablespoon of cumin, juice from one lime and salt.

The cilantro can be adjusted as needed. I'm not a fan of cilantro in anything, but it's really good in this salsa. It helps to balance out the deep flavors that the roasted vegetables and cumin bring.

If you don't have a fresh lime on hand, you can substitute bottled lime juice. Use about a tablespoon if you are using bottled juice.

If you want to turn up the heat some, add more jalapeno peppers.  The salsa already has a little bit of heat, so you might want to try it first.  If you are sensitive to heat, you may want to leave the pepper out.

I tried to add bell peppers to this a few times and let me caution you against that.  I tried roasting them and putting them in fresh.  It just didn't work.  The bell peppers gave the salsa an almost dirty taste. Just throwing that out there because some salsa recipes call for bell pepper.

Here's a quick list of what you need to make this oven roasted salsa:

-6-8 fresh, large ripe tomatoes
-one medium sized yellow onion
-a jalapeño pepper (more if you want more heat)
-a handful of fresh cilantro
-one heaping tablespoon of minced garlic
-heaping tablespoon of cumin
-juice of one lime (or one tablespoon of bottled lime juice)
-salt to taste

Prepping the vegetables

I cut up and roast my tomatoes and onions that are going into the salsa. Everything else goes in as is.

To get the vegetables ready, you need a sheet pan, aluminum foil, salt and a knife.

Cover your sheet pan with aluminum foil. I use my largest sheet pan so that I can make a larger batch of salsa.  Go ahead and preheat your oven to 375.

​Make this as easy on yourself as possible. I quarter my tomatoes.  The onions I cut into eight sections so they caramelize a little bit more.

Sprinkle the tomatoes and onions with salt.  Put the pan in the oven and let those puppies roast away for about 25-30 minutes. You'll have to check them after 25 minutes.  You want the tomatoes to start looking dried and the onions to have a hint of brown on them.

We aren't burning onions and we aren't making sun-dried tomato chips.  We just want some of the moisture out of the tomatoes and a little carmelization on the onions.

Take the tomatoes and onions out of the oven.  While they are still warm, pop them in the blender. If you want a chunkier salsa, reserve about half of them.  We will add them at the end, so don't worry about cutting anything up.

​Go ahead and roughly chop up your cilantro. I just run my knife over it a couple of times to break it up.  The blender will do most of the work for you.

Putting it all Together

​Now that your oven roasted vegetables are in the blender, add your garlic, cumin, diced jalapenos, and cilantro.  Use the pulse button on your blender if you have one. Pulse the mixture about ten times. This part of the salsa should be pretty runny.

You should see some of the salsa sticking to the sides of the blender around the top part of the blender.

If you reserved half of your tomatoes and onions, now is the time to put them in. If you want chunky salsa, pulse them in 2-3 times.  You may want to check it and make sure you aren't over blending it.

The salsa is so good that we've eaten it warm and straight out of the blender many times.  The flavors mature more once you let them sit and refrigerate.  This salsa is even better the next day!

Roasting the tomatoes and onions in this oven roasted salsa give the flavors a layer of depth that you just can't get with fresh salsa.

​Grab a bag of chips and dig in!
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