Quick Restaurant Style Salsa
Salsa is a variety of sauces used as condiments for tacos and other Mexican and Mexican-American foods, and as dips for tortilla chips. They may be raw or cooked, and are generally served at room temperature. Tortilla chips with salsa are a common appetizer in Mexican-American restaurants, but not in Mexico, which is interesting. The quick restaurant style salsa tastes just like those endless salsa and chips that you eat too much of, but is super easy to make. So you can stop buying premade salsa at the store, cause once you start making it fresh you’ll never want it any other way!
Though the word salsa means any kind of sauce in Spanish, in English, it refers specifically to these Mexican table sauces, especially to the chunky tomato-and-chili-based pico de gallo, as well as to salsa verde. Salsa is a common ingredient in Mexican cuisine, served as a condiment with tacos, stirred into soups and stews, or incorporated into tamale fillings. Salsa fresca is fresh salsa made with tomatoes and hot peppers.
About this Quick Restaurant Style Salsa recipe:
This recipe is the most common salsa “salsa roja”. Salsa roja, “red sauce”, is used as a condiment in Mexican and Southwestern (U.S.) cuisines; it usually includes cooked tomatoes, which is what makes it red, chili peppers, onion, garlic, and fresh cilantro (coriander). It’s pretty basic, but so delicious!
Salsas used to be made using a mortar and pestle, nowadays blenders are more common. Blenders can be a bit rough on the ingredients, so I like to let my salsas rest before serving them. It allows the flavors to be properly distributed and also will let the color be more vibrant. You can totally still use a mortar and pestle, especially if you skipped arm day at the gym. I personally think it does taste better, but if you’re pressed for time like I usually am, a blender is perfectly fine.
About the ingredients:
Fresh tomatoes are always recommended but then I wouldn’t be able to put “quick” in front of this recipe. I recommend when you use canned tomatoes to use whole tomatoes as the base. My personal favorite is the San Marzano brand. It’s the closest to homemade roasted tomatoes you can get in my opinion. I add the canned tomatoes and peppers but it gives it some extra acid since the peppers are almost pickled.
Fresh ingredients are extremely important to a good salsa but sometimes time constraints make it hard to go that route. This recipe gets a ton of flavor even with cutting a few corners, however nothing can replace the fresh herbs or peppers that are the base of any good salsa. Luckily with the few replacements I made you can just toss everything into a blender with very little prep.
Make sure the cilantro is as fresh as possible. Try to avoid it if it’s browning or wilting. You will lose a ton of flavor if the cilantro is older.
What about the Spice?
I like spice, but a lot of my family and my doctor want me to tone it down. So this recipe is only a mild level of spice. Feel free to not remove the seeds in the jalapeno or even add spicier peppers like serrano’s if you want to feel the heat more. You could even split the batch up and add in more spice to half of it if your family is picky like mine.
How to serve it?
You can serve salsa in a variety of ways as I mentioned before. This recipe is intended to be a kind of copycat of restaurant style salsas that are served tableside in America. I love it with homemade tortilla chips, but it can be used as an ingredient in Mexican dishes or as a condiment for tacos, quesadillas etc. Use it as you see fit.
Quick Restaurant Style Salsa Step by Step:
Put all ingredients into a blender or food processor and pulse to desired consistency. Test salsa and adjust seasonings to taste.
Refrigerate at least an hour before serving, but overnight is even better. This allows all the flavors to incorporate and will enhance the red color of the salsa as well.
This makes a really large batch and may need to be made in smaller batches, depending on the size of your blender. This can be kept in a sealed container in the fridge for up to a month.
Quick Restaurant Style Salsa Video Tutorial
Quick Restaurant Style Salsa
Ingredients
- 1-28 ounce can whole roasted tomatoes, San Marzano is the best
- 2-10 ounce cans diced tomatoes and green chilies
- 1/2 white onion, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, roughly smashed
- 1 jalapeno, roughly chopped (seeded or not, depends on your spice preference)
- 1 teaspoon sugar or honey
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cumin
- 1 handful cilantro
- juice of 1 lime
Instructions
- Put all ingredients into a blender or food processor and pulse to desired consistency. Test salsa and adjust seasonings to taste.
- Refrigerate at least an hour before serving, but overnight is even better. This allows all the flavors to incorporate and will enhance the red color of the salsa as well.