Have you ever tired Roasted Tomato Salsa for a change to the fresh stuff? The flavour is milder and smoother and it goes great with quesadillas, tacos, fajitas, nachos…you get the picture! Take a look and see what’s it’s all about.
Still Tomato Season
I know it’s November and tomato growing season is long behind us until next time. But on our little corner on the map, there’s still an abundance of tomatoes growing and at great prices most weeks. Yes, I did not grow the tomatoes for my salsa. Not this time around.
Sad Year For My Vegetables
In fact, this year was a sad year for my little vegetable patch. I started out with gusto (as they say), back the end of February. I carefully selected all my seeds. Got going with my tiny little trays until they flourished into small seedlings. Success. Transplanted them into my well nourished vegetable patch kept and eye on them like a baby.
All was going well, everything growing and flourishing and looking wonderful about a month into my garden project. The tomato plants were growing like weeds, literally. My zucchini and cucumber all had substantial flowers. More than I could even count. Even the arugula and lettuce were flourishing. I felt a bit like Rabbit in Winnie-the-Pooh. Pleased with myself.
Overnight, It just All The Vegetables Pretty much died
Then one day, out of the blue, it just came to a stand still. I’d like to point out, this was by far not my first vegetable patch. I’ve been dabbling in growing stuff for about a decade now with varying degrees of success. The biggest success was pretty much a tomato plantation back in 2009. And the biggest loss, I would have to say, was this year. Boo hoo!
I kept at my little patch of love trying to will everything to carrying on flourishing but nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Crickets. You know what I mean.
I did end up with a small tub of yellow cherry tomatoes. So, it wasn’t a total bust. Oh, and a long term allergic reaction on my hands that I still can’t seem to get rid of!
Moral of the story, buy the tomatoes next time Julia!
Now we’ll take a look at the non home grown tomato salsa. Insert my sad face.
Notes about the salsa
Choose Your Tomatoes
- The type of tomatoes you use will determine the outcome of the salsa. I’ve made this several times with varying degrees of success with the type of tomatoes I used. When I first made it, I used beef steak tomatoes and it lacked flavour. So, maybe try to avoid those ones. I also make it with vine tomatoes, (like you see here), and a mix of vine tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. Both of those were successful and flavoursome. Another tomato variety that would work would the pear tomato.
Cooking time will vary on the ripeness of the tomatoes
- The tomatoes I used were firm but ripe and they roasted in pretty much 40 minutes flat. If you have overly ripe tomatoes, they will probably be done a bit quicker. the same goes for under ripe tomatoes, they will probably take a bit longer. Just something to think about when roasting the tomatoes.
- Also, after roasting the garlic should be quite soft. If it isn’t, I would recommend giving it a rough chop before putting it in the food processor. After you have pulsed the salsa and have reached the consistency you like, check for large pieces of garlic. If you find them, it will be probably best to just hand chop them and put them back in. If you continue to pulse, you will just turn your salsa into soup! Nobody wants that.
This is a great make ahead salsa to serve with any type of Mexican food or just a dip for chips. It would go really great alongside the Loaded Chicken Quesadillas.You can store it in the fridge in a glass jar for up to a few weeks.
Happy cooking friends!
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Get the recipe!
Roasted Tomato Salsa
Ingredients
- 8- 10 tomatoes ripe vine, cut into quarters
- 1 small onion roughly chopped
- 6 cloves cloves peeled
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 Teaspoon sea salt
- 3-4 Small dried chilies finely chopped
- Small bunch fresh cilantro
Instructions
- On a large baking sheet, add the tomatoes, onion and garlic. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle over sea salt. Roast in the oven for about 35-40 minutes until tomatoes are soft and charred. Remove from oven.
- Add the tomatoes and onions to a food processor. Add the chillies and fresh cilantro. Pulse for around 10 seconds. Check the consistency and pulse again if it is too chunky.
*A note on times provided: appliances vary, any prep and/or cook times provided are estimates only.
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