Fresh Salsa with Cilantro & Lime

by Stacey Updated: Apr 9, 2022

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Get your tortilla chips ready! Fresh Roma tomatoes, cilantro & lime create an easy, bright, restaurant-style salsa that you can enjoy any time. This simple homemade salsa recipe also makes a perfect topping for your favorite enchiladas, tacos or Tex Mex casseroles!

The Engineer and I first fell in love with fresh salsa at a little dive we happened upon in Taos, New Mexico. If you’ve been following long, you know that he loves to drag me into every hole in the wall place he can find. For him, the more hole in the wall the better. And he’s not often wrong. His love for local flavor has been the source for most of our favorite recipes/dishes!

RELATED RECIPES: Strawberry Avocado Salsa, Green Chile Corn Salsa Dip

And this fresh tomato salsa recipe with cilantro and lime is the result of one those delicious local discoveries. There are no canned tomatoes here! Only gorgeously bright and fresh fruit and veggies. There have been years that we’ve planted a garden just so that we can make this salsa. It’s just that good!

Ingredients to make fresh salsa with cilantro and lime

What You Need To Make Fresh Cilantro Lime Salsa

Roma tomatoes
yellow onion
jalapenos
cilantro
lime
vinegar
garlic
salt
sugar
chili powder

Tips For Making The Best Salsa

Roma tomatoes, those funny, oval shaped tomatoes at your local grocery store or farmer’s market, make the best salsa. The reason is that Romas have more meat and fewer seed cavities than other types of tomatoes. Meatier tomatoes create a better textured, less watery salsa. Cherry or grape tomatoes work great too!
Because this recipe uses only fresh tomatoes and not canned ones, I don’t use a food processor to chop everything. Or if I do, I only do a couple of quick pulses with the peppers, onion and cilantro ON THE BOTTOM. A food processor can easily break a fresh tomato down too much and create a watery salsa, of you’re not careful.
Instead of a food processor, I might use my pastry cutter to blend up my diced tomatoes, onions and peppers after adding them to my salsa if I think the salsa is too chunky. Using a pastry cutter gives me more control of the texture.
The sugar in this recipe cuts the bright acidity of the tomatoes (especially store bought tomatoes), vinegar and lime. And though that acidity is my favorite part, it does need a bit of balancing. However, as summer heats up and the tomatoes get sweeter, you might find that you need less sugar.
The ease and success of this recipe depends 100% on a nicely sharp knife.

How To Make Your Salsa Hotter (or Milder)

The membrane that holds the seeds of a jalapeno or other hot pepper is where the heat of the pepper comes from. How much membrane you leave in the pepper will determine the heat of your salsa.
Usually, shorter peppers are hotter than longer ones.
Canned diced green chiles can be substituted for fresh jalapenos to make a 100% mild salsa. Just drain the chiles before adding them to your salsa.

What To Serve With Fresh Salsa

Other Salsa & Mexcian Dip Recipes You’ll Love

It’s no secret we really love this recipe right along with you readers! It truly is one of our top dip recipes. And it’s no wonder… This easy salsa with cilantro is off the charts fresh and delicious. Share a few laughs and more than a few tortilla chips with those you love plus a new friend or two when you make this special recipe.

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