This cherry tomato salsa is a little sweet, a little smoky, and absolutely delicious! It's super easy to make and is the perfect addition to tacos, bowls, or simply with tortilla chips.
Jump to:
Why We Love This Recipe
- Great use of seasonal produce: If you're anything like us, you probably have a massive container of cherry tomatoes sitting on your counter all August long. We always over-buy (they always look so good!) and then run out of ways to use them. This cherry tomato salsa is the perfect use for all of that seasonal goodness and it's a great way to preserve that delicious flavor even past tomato season.
- Quick and easy: Once everything is prepped, this recipe is as simple as roasting for 20 minutes followed by a quick spin in the blender. It's a super easy recipe that looks impressive and tricks people into thinking you spent lots of time on it.
- Extremely versatile: This cherry tomato salsa is both sweet and spicy, making it the perfect addition to tacos, nachos, salads, or straight out of the bowl with tortilla chips. It's great for entertaining - bring a batch to your next summer dinner party!
Ingredients
Here's what you'll need to make this cherry tomato salsa:
Ingredient Notes
- Tomatoes: The star ingredient of this salsa: cherry tomatoes. We love using fresh cherry tomatoes in this salsa for that slightly sweet flavor that pairs perfectly with the mild spice. You can use any variety. As you can see in these photos, we opted for multicolored cherry tomatoes, which we absolutely love for their differing flavors and textures. Each color adds a little something extra to this cherry tomato salsa! That being said, all one color would be perfectly fine, too.
- Olive oil: You can sub with any other high heat, neutral oil.
- Jalapeño: These peppers add the perfect kick to this cherry tomato salsa. If you want a little extra spice, don't remove the seeds and membrane of the jalapeños.
- Garlic: We keep the cloves unpeeled while roasting, which prevents them from burning since they cook faster than the other vegetables. Just don't forget to peel before adding to the blender!
- Cilantro: If you're not a fan of the flavor of cilantro, you can leave it out.
- Onion: Any variety of onion will work in this recipe, but we like white for its mellow flavor that doesn't overpower the tomatoes and jalapeño.
- Lime juice: Make sure to use freshly squeezed for the best possible flavor!
Instructions
PREP: Preheat oven to 400˚F.
(1) Add tomatoes, onion, jalapeño and garlic cloves to a large mixing bowl. Toss with vegetable oil, salt and cumin until well coated. You can also do this directly on a sheet pan, but we find it's easier to evenly coat everything in a bowl.
(2) Roast for 15-20 minutes, stirring halfway through, until tomatoes are softened and onion/jalapeño are browned.
Remove from oven and let cool slightly. Peel the garlic cloves. You should be able to easily squeeze the softened garlic directly out of the skin.
(3) Transfer everything to a blender or food processor with lime juice and blend for 20-30 seconds. Taste, add more salt ¼ teaspoon at a time if needed, and blend for 5-10 seconds between additions.
Stir in fresh cilantro before serving.
Tips and FAQs
- Spice it up: If you prefer a spicier salsa, leave the seeds in the jalapeños. This will add an extra kick to your cherry tomato salsa. Alternatively, add in a dash of chili powder or cayenne to the vegetables before roasting. Another great addition would be 1-2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce for extra spicy/smoky flavor.
- Don't forget to peel the garlic cloves once they come out of the oven!
- Add more salt as needed: It's always hard to tell exactly how much salt you'll need in this salsa until it's actually blended, so we always wait to add more until the end. Just be sure to blend well each time you add more to make sure it's evenly distributed.
- Storage: Store any leftovers in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.
- Entertaining: If you're serving this cherry tomato salsa to a large crowd, we suggest doubling or tripling the recipe. This doesn't make a huge batch (the vegetables shrink a lot while roasting), so you'll need a bit more for a crowd.
- Ways to use this cherry tomato salsa:
- On tacos, nachos or burrito bowls
- With a breakfast burrito
- On top of a breakfast scramble
- With crispy potatoes
- On a taco salad
- On a burger
- Stirred into homemade queso dip
- With your favorite tortilla chips
Nope! You can just roast the tomatoes as is directly on the sheet pan. That's the best part of this recipe, there's such little prep required.
Other Tomato Recipes to Enjoy
Tried this recipe? Leave a comment with a star rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ below. You can also snap a photo and tag @crowded_kitchen on Instagram. We can't wait to see what you're cooking!
Cook with us often? Tell Google you want Crowded Kitchen recipes near the top of your results.
Cherry Tomato Salsa
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This cherry tomato salsa is a little sweet, a little smoky, and absolutely delicious! It's super easy to make and is the perfect addition to tacos, bowls, or simply with tortilla chips.
Ingredients
3 cups cherry tomatoes (24 ounces or 1 ½ pints)
½ of a small white or yellow onion, chopped into 1" pieces
2 jalapeños, halved, and seeds removed
4 cloves garlic, skin on
1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
½ tsp cumin
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400˚F.
- Add tomatoes, onion, jalapeño and garlic cloves to a large mixing bowl. Toss with vegetable oil, salt and cumin until well coated.
- Roast for 15-20 minutes, stirring halfway through, until tomatoes are softened and onion/jalapeño are browned.
- Remove from oven and let cool slightly. Peel the garlic cloves.
- Transfer everything to a blender or food processor with lime juice and blend for 20-30 seconds. Taste, add more salt ¼ teaspoon at a time if needed, and blend for 5-10 seconds between additions.
- Stir in fresh cilantro before serving.
Notes
Spice it up: If you prefer a spicier salsa, leave the seeds in the jalapeños. Alternatively, add in a dash of chili powder or cayenne to the vegetables before roasting. Another great addition would be 1-2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce for extra spicy/smoky flavor.
Don't forget to peel the garlic cloves once they come out of the oven!
Cilantro: If you're not a fan of the flavor of cilantro, you can leave it out.
Storage: Store any leftovers in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Dips/Sauces
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 51
- Sugar: 2.5 g
- Sodium: 315 mg
- Fat: 3.6 g
- Carbohydrates: 4.9 g
- Fiber: 1.2 g
- Protein: 0.9 g
Lizzie says
You mention habanero pepper, but I don't see it in the list of ingredients. Only red/yellow peppers and minced jalapeño.
I will make this today and see how it goes.
Missi says
I realize it’s been a while since this post but i made this last night and I really struggled with the initial quantities of fruit compared to the final “2 cups prepared” fruit that’s listed in the ingredient list. 2lbs of peaches landed me 4 cups of chopped peaches. 2lbs of tomatoes landed me with 3.5 cups of chopped tomatoes. I know the initial weight is a guesstimate but to be off by 100% seems like I did something wrong, not the recipe. To boot, when I broiled these until they had some char on them, the tomatoes were so mushy I wasn’t chopping them, I was basically smashing them. Lol Also, how the heck do you leave the charred skins on when the act of charring encourages the whole skin to just slide right off? Needless to say I had so many prep issues with this recipe but it worked out. Once I realized I already had 2x the peaches and almost 2x the tomatoes charred, I went ahead and doubled the whole recipe. I only filled 6 pints though. So maybe it was supposed to be more than 2cups prepared per batch after all?? Ahhhhh! So confusing. I ate some of the extra bit of salsa that chilled over in the fridge with my breakfast. ON POINT. I might put myself through the struggles again when tomatoes are ripening!
Carol says
Missi- I had a similar experience with the chopping and skins. I had to broil them and once I got the char, the skin came off or I got charred pieces that didn't seem like I'd want to eat them. My measurements, however, ended up spot on with the recipe. A friend made this for me last year and it was delicious. I'm hopeful mine ends up tasting as good as hers.
Matt says
Thanks, this turned out great! I halved the recipe and used a whole roasted jalapeno and went a little lighter on the lime and salt.
Lexi says
Glad to hear you enjoyed, Matt! Thanks for your comment!