Restaurant Style Salsa is inexpensive and a cinch to make at home. Learn the ingredient I use to make it taste just like a restaurant's!
“This salsa is AMAZING!! It is so simple to make and is so much better than store bought. Everyone that has tried it requests the recipe!”
I’m about to share with you one of the greatest restaurant hacks of all time: making homemade, restaurant-style salsa is not only easy and inexpensive, but it’s BEST made with canned tomatoes.
While fresh tomatoes make great pico de gallo, you gotta go with canned tomatoes if you want that true restaurant salsa flavor.
You heard it here first, folks!
Watch How to Make It
Homemade Restaurant-Style Salsa
I’ve been making this homemade salsa recipe since college, which is when I found out that canned tomatoes are the secret to the addictive-deliciousness of restaurant style salsa (ie, I begged the waiter at Carlos O’Kelly’s to tell me how they make their salsa. SO GOOD!)
Of course I occasionally slack and buy salsa at the store, but this recipe gives you the restaurant experience at home, and takes just a few minutes to make.
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- Inexpensive: the recipe for Restaurant Style Salsa makes 4 cups of salsa for under $5. That said, its very economical and great for serving at parties and get togethers.
- Long-lasting: homemade salsa will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge. While I don’t have experience canning, I know enough to confidently say this recipe would can well.
- Quick & easy: I use my 14 cup food processor to whip this salsa up in just a few minutes, though a blender would most likely work well too.
- Customize the spice: as written, my recipe is mild on the spice scale, but feel free to leave the seeds in the jalapeno to increase the spice level, and/or experiment with adding different kinds of chili peppers.
How to Make Restaurant Style Salsa
There’s just one step involved in this recipe – throw a bunch of ingredients into the bowl of a food processor then pulse – woo!
We’ve got canned whole peeled tomatoes, red onion (white onion works great too), fresh cilantro, fresh garlic, jalapeno, salt, sugar, and fresh lime juice.
NOTE: if your canned tomatoes contain sugar in the ingredient list then omit the sugar in the recipe.
Pulse the ingredients until you reach your desired consistency then taste and add more salt and/or lime juice if necessary.
That said, this salsa is best eaten 24 hours or more after making, so the flavors have time to meld, and so I like to adjust the seasonings just before serving the day after making.
Scoop the salsa into a 4 cup mason jar or bowl with a tight fitting lid then refrigerate for 24 hours to let the flavors really meld before digging in. The salsa will stay fresh in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks, though mine never ever sticks around that long.
I hope you love this EASY restaurant style salsa at home! Enjoy!
Serve Restaurant Style Salsa with these Recipes:
- Beef Enchiladas
- Cheese Enchiladas with Red Sauce
- Homemade Crunchy Taco Hamburger Helper
- Easy Chicken Enchiladas
- Chicken Fajitas
- Creamy Pinto Beans
- Cheesy Chicken Burrito Skillet
- Restaurant-Style Ground Beef
Equipment
Ingredients
- 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes, undrained
- 1/2 red or white onion, roughly chopped
- 1 handful cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- 1 jalapeno, seeded and roughly chopped (leave in seeds for a spicier salsa)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 lime
- 1 teaspoon sugar*
Directions
- Add ingredients — whole tomatoes through salt — to a food processor. Add the juice of half a lime, plus the sugar if your canned tomatoes do not contain sugar. If sugar is listed as an ingredient on your canned tomatoes, omit the sugar.
- Pulse ingredients until desired consistency is reached then taste and add more lime juice and/or salt if necessary. Refrigerate overnight for best results then serve.
Notes
- This salsa is mild as written with 1 seeded jalapeno.
- This recipe makes ~4 cups of salsa.
Nutrition
Nutritional values are estimates only. Please read our full nutrition information disclaimer.
I made this for taco night when we had family in town over Christmas and it was so good that my husband requested it again for super bowl snacks. I love that it’s so easy and the results are super tasty.
Love hearing that, Amy!! Thank you so much for your feedback and recipe rating!
Think I could use canned diced tomatoes rather than whole peeled tomatoes if that’s all I have? Going to make this tomorrow to go with your slow cooker black bean soup :)
That should be fine, Danielle! :)
I always use diced tomatoes, fire roasted with garlic, to be exact. Turns out PERFECT every. single. time!
Yum! Sounds delicious, DK!
Nicely done. I’ve been chasing after this recipe for a long time. Used to hit up Carlos O’Kelly’s all the time as a teenager when I first got my license because my friends and I were all zany about the salsa, so with your intel, it’s final! Delicious! Who would have thought the canned tomato was the secret?
Sincerely,
Another (former) Iowan
Right?! So glad it delivered. :)
I still make this all the time. There is no need for any other salsa recipe. LOVE it.
Question: what is the refrigerator shelf life? Thank you.
I’m so glad you love it, Christy (and I totally agree!!) I usually say 4-5 days in the fridge.
The first time I made this it was unreal, I’ve made it several more times and it hasn’t ever been as intensely flavored as the first time- it’s almost watery and not tomatoey? What could I be doing wrong?
Hi Chloe! What brand of canned tomatoes are you using?
If you like a chunkier salsa use diced canned tomatoes and diced onion instead of blending it otherwise it’s the same ingredients. Just mix everything together and done.
Made it- everyone loves it.Family said tasted like the Mexican restaurant. Only question is it has a grey/green look not bright red as pictured. Did I put too much cilantro in it or mix too long???
Wohoo!! You got it – if the cilantro is overpureed it can lend that green/gray color to the entire salsa. In the future you could puree the salsa to your desired texture then add the cilantro to the food processor and give it a few more pulses to roughly chop. Glad the taste was spot on for you though!
This salsa is AMAZING!! It is so simple to make and is so much better than store bought. Everyone that has tried it requests the recipe!
Canned tomatoes??? You’ve Got To Be Kidding!!!
Unthinkable!!! :(
Try it first then let me know what you think. :)
Almost all restaurants, including Rao’s which is exclusive in NYC used canned tomatoes for their sauces. None of them have time to be processing fresh tomatoes for sauce. They’d lose money.
The taste is also vastly superior using canned tomatoes in my opinion!
Meh. Flavor is decent, but drain the tomatoes it’s waaaay more watery than it was in the pictures.
Hi Kelsey, I understand your batch came out more watery than what you see in my pictures, but every batch I’ve ever made has turned out exactly like these photos. They are an exact representation of how the recipe turns out in my kitchen.
What brand of tomatoes do u recoy
I like Hunts or Red Gold :)
This is so on point. Flavours are amazing. Took me like 5 minutes to make. Will never by salsa again!!
So thrilled to har it, Kelly! Thank you so much for your feedback and recipe rating!
I really enjoy all of your recipes. I know that when I make one of yours our family will love it! I got a kick out of seeing the salsa recipe. I knew instantly what the secret ingredient was. When a” family favorite “Mexican restaurant had to finally close after 20+ years they gave my friend the recipe for their addictive salsa. I was shocked to see that the secret was canned tomatoes! It’s almost identical to yours. Yum!
Yes!! So good – honestly I find similar salsas made with fresh tomatoes very bland. With canned you always get a consistent flavor!
This salsa is AMAZING and TRULY restaurant style! I grew up loving the salsa served at mexican restaurants in the states like El Picante in Ohio and Plaza Azteca in PA, and this salsa is up there with theirs! I have been trying to achieve restaurant style salsa and have been unsuccessful, until now. My family all loves it as well, called it “excellent”, and said that this recipe “cracked the code”! Thank you for posting this! Just to mention, I left out the sugar as you suggested because my canned tomatoes did contain sugar, and I added the finely chopped onions at the end and mixed by hand rather than pulsing them with the rest of the ingredients, as another review mentioned above. I also replaced the jalepeno pepper with red chili pepper. Thanks so much!
I’m thrilled to hear this, Lynda!! Thanks so much for sharing about your experience with the recipe! :D