Homemade Salsa — A Cost Argument

What if your local market starting selling jars of salsa for 94 cents?  Jars like this:

And if the $0.94 version tasted significantly better than the $4.79 store-bought version, which would you buy?

It would be a no-brainer right?

So why do people still pay five bucks for store-bought salsa?  I don’t know!

FRESH, VIBRANT 94 CENT SALSA

Here is your ingredient list for 2 cups worth of delicious homemade salsa:

With corresponding receipt:

We are only using half the onion ($0.28), plus we’ll add a few cents in for the single garlic clove — coming out to a frugal 94 cents.  (Note:  this is from a produce market in Vancouver so your prices could be higher/lower.)

There’s only one catch:  you still have to make it.  But that’s easy.

Rinse the tomatoes and cut out the stems.  Roast them in the oven at 400F for 20 minutes or so.

Add to a blender along with the 1/2 onion, 1 clove garlic, and 1/4 of the jalapeno.

Pulse blend and taste for heat.  Not enough?  Add another quarter of the jalapeno, pulse blend, and taste again for heat.

Everyone’s taste buds are different so the first batch takes some tasting.

Once you get the heat level to your liking you can salt to taste.  If you have fresh tomatoes you probably won’t need much salt.

And there you have it.  Fresh, homemade salsa.

You’ll be surprised how much flavor it has.  The combination of freshly roasted tomatoes and a properly balanced heat level creates something best described as otherworldly.

Give it a try, it’ll outgun anything you can bring home from the supermarket.

And it costs 94 cents.

Buen Provecho.

(Note:  You can use the same technique to make a rich, smoky Tomato-Chipotle Salsa.  This page has some step-by-step instructions if you want to learn how.)