Quick & Easy Blender Salsa — 🍅🎉💃🏼 This FAST and EASY salsa recipe will teach you how to make salsa at home in just a few minutes in the blender so you’ll never run out! It tastes just like that addictively amazing salsa that your favorite Mexican restaurant serves alongside a basket of warm tortilla chips. Get ready to DIG IN and impress your friends and family with this restaurant-style blender salsa recipe!
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Easy Homemade Salsa … in a Blender!
I’m a chips and salsa fiend. I almost don’t even need the chips and can just shovel in the salsa by the fork-full.
When I want salsa now, I turn to this restaurant-style salsa recipe made in a blender.
The best part of this salsa is how fast, easy, and goofproof it is. Add all the ingredients to your blender or food processor, blend, and you’re done in under 2 minutes. My favorite kind of recipe!
Over time, the flavors really marry, and the rawness of the onion and garlic mellows.
We love this easy salsa recipe so much more than any restaurant or store-bought salsa. I love it when homemade, easy recipes trump all the others.
Homemade Blender Salsa Ingredients
I prefer making my blended salsa with canned tomatoes rather than fresh. Using canned tomatoes keeps this a dump-and-blend recipe and eliminates the need to dirty a knife and cutting board.
Gather the following ingredients to make the salsa in a blender:
- Canned tomatoes
- Yellow onions
- Jalapeño pepper
- Fresh garlic
- Ground cumin
- Salt
- Granulated sugar
- Fresh cilantro
- Fresh lime juice
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Salsa in a Blender
This blender salsa recipe is customizable and requires you to stop, taste-test, and tweak based on your own personal preferences. Everyone’s preference for salt, heat, and texture differs.
Here’s an overview of how blender salsa is made:
- Add all the ingredients to a blender.
- Pulse until the salsa reaches your desired consistency.
- Adjust the seasonings to taste.
- If desired, stir in optional black beans or corn to the blended salsa to add extra flavor and texture (stir in by hand, don’t pulse in the blender).
- Transfer the salsa to an airtight container or jar, or serve right away!
Tip
You can enjoy the blended salsa right away, but I actually think it tastes best after it’s been allowed to sit in the refrigerator for a day. This gives the flavors time to come together.
Recipe FAQs
Yes, but try making a batch with a little sugar in it and see what you think! The sugar balances the heat from the pepper and the acidity in the tomatoes. Start with less and add more if necessary, and definitely be careful not to over-sweeten.
This salsa will last up to a week in the fridge and can be paired with chips, tacos, burritos, and more!
Also, I used canned whole tomatoes, but you can use diced if that’s all you have on hand.
Just make sure to buy a large enough can, and double check that your tomatoes don’t contain extra flavorings (sometimes they’re canned with basil or other herbs).
Yes! This restaurant-style salsa is extremely hard to resist right out of the blender, but if you can make it a day in advance and store it in the fridge, it’s much better the second and third day. I’ve never been able to get it to last past the third day.
Fairly spicy! Use fewer jalapeños and/or remove the seeds if you don’t like four-alarm fires as much as I do.
Yes, it probably would be fine to use fresh tomatoes instead of canned. It will result in a slightly different flavor perhaps, but if you have them to use up, I would go for it!
What to Serve with Restaurant-Style Salsa
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Blender Salsa
Equipment
- 1 Blender or Food Processor
Ingredients
- 28 ounces canned tomatoes, including juice (I used these whole, peeled plum tomatoes)
- 1 small yellow onion, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, de-stemmed and roughly chopped*
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
- 1 ½ teaspoons ground cumin, or to taste
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt, or to taste (remember some brands of tomatoes and chips are much saltier than others)
- ¼ to 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, optional and to taste**
- 1 tbsp or 2 handfuls cilantro leaves, discard stems (I prefer 2, or about half of a 1 small bunch)
- 3 tbsp lime juice
- 3/4 cup corn, optional
- 3/4 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed, optional
- corn tortilla chips, for serving
Instructions
- Add all ingredients (except optional corn and beans) to the canister of a blender or food processor in the order listed. Pulse or blend on high power until texture is as smooth as desired. If you have a very strong blender, you probably don’t need to pre-chop the ingredients before adding them to the blender, but I do just to make sure I don’t get large random, accidentally unblended chunks of any one ingredient.
- Taste the salsa and based on personal preference tweak as necessary.
- Optionally stir in the corn and black beans.
- Transfer to airtight container and serve immediately with chips. However, I prefer to refrigerate salsa for 1 day prior to serving because I prefer chilled salsa and because the flavors marry, mellow, and the flavor improves on the second and third day. Salsa will likely keep up to 1 week airtight in the fridge; however, we’ve always eaten a batch within 3 days.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Homemade Salsa Recipes:
Chunky Tomatillo Avocado Salsa — If you like salsa verde, you’re going to LOVE this homemade version that includes creamy chunks of avocado! As FAST and EASY and tossing a handful of healthy ingredients into your food processor and the salsa is ready in seconds.
The Best Peach Mango Salsa — Fast, easy, and tastes a million times better than anything store-bought! So.darn.good!
Pineapple Salsa — Pineapple Chunks, yellow bell peppers, Roma tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper — a healthy, clean, and simple ingredient list that packs big time flavor and texture.
Blueberry Corn Salsa — The salsa is packed with fresh blueberries, corn, strawberries, jalapeno, cilantro, lime, and hot sauce. There’s texture galore in every bite, but you can blend it if you prefer a smooth texture.
Sweet and Spicy Chipotle Salsa — A sweet and spicy salsa with a lovely smokiness from pineapple, tomatillo, onion, and garlic that are blistered under broiler and then blended with chipotle peppers! PERFECT over tacos, with chips, or as a great addition to any Mexican-inspired meal!
Watermelon Mango Salsa — The EASY salsa is made with watermelon, mango, and mint adds so much fresh FLAVOR! Healthy, FAST, EASY!
Thanks for the recipe it’s great but can I can it so I can enjoy it all year around? It’s about time to start getting ready to plant gardens and this would be a great thing to plant and can so I will have this wonderful salsa all winter long. Thanks for sharing
Merry
Thanks for the recipe it’s great but can I can it so I can enjoy it all year around? It’s about time to start getting ready to plant gardens and this would be a great thing to plant and can so I will have this wonderful salsa all winter long. Thanks for sharing
Merry
I am sure you can enjoy this year round!
This was the first time I ever made salsa. I used fresh tomatoes and it turned out great! We used the salsa to make chicken tacos in the instant pot. Now that’s the only way we will make tacos!
This was very simple to make and tastes good! I agree, why buy salsa when this tastes so good.
Thanks for the five star review and glad you agree that there’s no need to buy it!
I made this recipe and used fresh patio tomatoes and jalapeño from my garden. It turned out great, except it was sweet. I did not add any sugar. Do you think it was because I used patio tomatoes instead of plum tomatoes?
Thanks for the 5 star review. Some tomatoes can be very sweet and I am thinking that is what happened to you with garden tomatoes.
Canned tomatoes tend to be very acidic and don’t have that natural ‘garden fresh’ taste or sweetness.
This is really good! I didn’t add the options and had to use canned pickled jalapeños because that’s all I had. I love the freash taste, will be a favorite from now on, thanks for posting!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
a splash of balsamic vinegar sweetens and adds richness to salsa, and for variation, fire-roasted tomatoes are delicious. a little fresh green pepper adds a nice bitter element and some extra crispness without heat
This salsa is ahhhhhh-mazing! Thanks for sharing such a GREAT recipe!! :)
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank youuuu! I am a born and raised Texan who moved to Canada 12 years back. I have searched high and low to find a salsa that reminds me of home. Made this over the weekend and I am so happy!! So simple, so easy and perfect!! Love it!
Thanks for trying the recipe and glad it came out great for you! And that it reminds you of salsa from back home in Texas – that’s a great compliment, thanks!
I just need to tell you how much I LOVE this salsa! The first time I made it I considered living on fresh salsa for the rest of my life! Lol! Sooo good!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and glad it came out great for you! And after I made this the first time, I think I did live on it for a few days :)
Please check into the Pintrest link. It keeps coming up as pin not found.
Could you be a bit more specific? I just pinned this as a test to one of my boards and it worked just fine.
Just made this tonight, and it is delicious! My husband and I were both a little unsure about using canned tomatoes, but it is as good as any salsa I have had with fresh tomatoes. I also like that you can alter the heat level by adding more or less jalapeños. Now I am just wondering if it would freeze well.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! I haven’t tried freezing it so can’t say for sure. I know there are ways to ‘can’ salsa using sterile jars, a water bath, etc. but you’d need to google for more info on that because I haven’t canned it either.
I’ve been making salsa for the past year. Just when I thought I got it down pat, I ran across your recipe. But because of your sense of humor and descriptive writing, I laughed until my eyes watered! You nailed it with every word! It was almost as if I had written your article myself! Because of that, I’ll be making your salsa tomorrow! Thanks for the recipe and for the laughter!
Glad you enjoyed my writing and got some laughs :)
This recipe looks delicious and I cant wait to try it out with my new blender! I absolutely love my Blender! I have had it about a year and have never had any issues. I have been making all different kinds of meals. I still make a lot of smoothies with it but I have been making my own soups and even peanut butter!
I can’t wait to try this recipe! The only thing that confuses me is where you say to omit the jalapeño seeds to help reduce the heat. I learned from a show all about different types of peppers. It said The heat actually comes from between the skin and the fruit.
There’s heat all over in peppers, skin, flesh, and seeds but I know from personal experience that the seeds do contain a lot of heat and you’ll reduce the overall heat load if you omit them.
Wow! This is so good! One question, my sulci even though fantastic tasting turned brown. I suspect it is from the cumin but yours did not look brown to me. Any ideas? Thanks!
Glad you love it! Cilantro can sometimes turn brown (oxidize) over time and sometimes that happens quicker than other times. Also tomatoes vary in how bright and vibrant they are, some are darker than others and then with the cilantro, that could be making the color darker.