Comments on: Saving Pennies or Dollars? Making Your Own Salsa

By: littlepitcher

littlepitcher — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 01:06:05 +0000

Maters are cheap a month before first frost to the week after. You-pick farms routinely sell them for $5/5 gallon bucket. I just paid $9 for 25 lbs, cheaper than driving, $3 for 3 lbs red jalapenos, $1 for 5 limes, and $1.99 for 5 garlic bulbs. Vinegar, cumin, and 2 bunches of cilantro, $1.50; 3 boxes jar lids, $3. Results: 20 pint jars plus 10 12-ounce jars, for around fifty cents each. The salvage salad dressing jars made it through the pressure canner just fine. Not a speck of HFCS or salt. Go for it.

By: Creede

Creede — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:44:40 +0000

I’m a pico de gallo kind of guy myself. My wife and daughter can’t eat most peppers so we just stick with the onion, tomato, lime and cilantro. Maybe a little chili powder. Cheap and tasty; how cheap depends on what the price of tomatoes is at the moment.

Trent, you pointed out the key to all this at the beginning of your reply: anything you make yourself is made to your taste and health requirements. Cost falls by the wayside if you’re like me and want a salsa with no peppers in it, or if you’re like Alexis and want to avoid the HFCS.

By: Lilly

Lilly — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:50:19 +0000

As others have said, you don’t need all those fancy ingredients to make a very good, cheap homemade salsa. I use a can of diced tomatoes, a clove of garlic, lots of chopped onion, chopped cilantro and sea salt. You don’t even need lime juice. Put everything in the food processor and pulse to the desired consistency. If you want to make it fancier and a little hotter, add 1/2 to a whole chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. The beauty of homemade salsa is not that it’s so much cheaper to make your own but that it’s so vastly superior to any of the bottled stuff sold in market.

By: Melody

Melody — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:37:31 +0000

However, the cost of canning goes down considerably if you do it a lot and start re-using your jars. In season, you can also get a great deal on larger amounts of tomatoes if you go to a farmer’s market. Even last week, I was able to get enough tomatoes and peppers to make 9 pints of salsa for about $15 (end of season tomatoes and jalapenos that needed to get sold quickly, along with in season onions). I reused the jars I already had, bringing the cost to under 1.75 a jar.

By: Carmie

Carmie — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:32:38 +0000

I make a “canned” salsa that everyone loves. It’s super easy. I got the recipe from my mother-in-law. We call it “hot dip.”

1 28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 small onion roughly chopped
1 can medium heat diced chilis
1 tbs cumin
1 tbs garlic salt
1 tbs accent seasoning
chili powder to taste

Dump all in a food processor. Pulse to the consistency you like. Chill. This is awesome cold.

Sometimes I’ll add in half a bell pepper if I have one on hand, but this is truly a “pantry” dish as you really shouldn’t have to make a special trip for anything.

By: EllenB

EllenB — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 12:16:59 +0000

For those of us with unfortunate allergies to raw tomatoes and green peppers, I cook up a large pot of salsa and freeze what won’t be consumed within a reasonable amount of time. Since the salsa is cooked, freezing won’t affect the quality of the vegs. This year’s tomato harvest wasn’t very good, so I chopped up extra tomatoes as they ripened, popped into the freezer, and used those for the salsa when I had enough for a batch.

By: Joanna

Joanna — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:39:24 +0000

I just make pico de gallo as well, no need for all that other stuff. 1 tomato, 1/2 white onion, couple jalepenos and some cilantro. Chop it all up and stir together. mmm. A dollar, maybe less.

By: Other Jonathan

Other Jonathan — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 21:23:54 +0000

My wife makes the most delicious fresh “pico de gallo” style salsa – it’s pretty much just fresh chopped tomatoes, purple and white and green onion, (or whatever’s available), finely chopped cilantro, some garlic salt, and plenty of lemon and lime juice. We don’t like spicy salsa, so this, served cold on tortilla chips or pretty much any mexican food, is incredible. I have never priced it out – I’m sure the tomatoes are the primary driver of the price. Also, because it gets eaten almost instantaneously, you could say it’s pricier than the stuff from the store automatically.

By: sergiogsr

sergiogsr — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:44:07 +0000

No need for the Bell pepper and the chili powder. And usually Jalapeños are not used to make salsa.

Stay with the “chile ancho”, or try “chile de arbol”, “chile Chipotle” (those are a variation of Jalapeño, dried and with vinegar), “Chile guajillo” and if you’re really brave “chile habanero”.

You can add chicken broth or stock.