Fresh homemade salsa is just so bright, fresh, and delightful. And it’s really easy to make. There are just a couple things you’ll want to keep in mind when making it from scratch and it is all dependent on your taste, prep, and cooking preferences. For those who like smooth salsa, you can either blend or cook the vegetables down more to achieve that consistency. Or don’t for a chunkier style.
For that bright, fresh taste, options include adding fresh lime, tomatillos, cilantro, or you can cook the vegetables for a lesser time or not at all if you’re not inclined to do so. For a deep, smoky taste, you can roast any or all of the vegetables at a higher heat in the oven.
Of course you can always simply cook then blend all the vegetables at once if you’d like but taking additional steps to prep and stage really makes for a salsa that allows for balance and depth of a fresh and smoky taste, medium-smooth texture that stays on your chip, and where the fresh vegetable colors remain. I like a depth of flavor, texture, and color that combines the best of all worlds, so I prefer to reserve some of the freshly chopped vegetables to add at the end.
And you can change the level of spice by omitting/adding more peppers of choice, mainly jalapeños and serranos and leaving in the membrane/seeds.
Let me know if you make this recipe and which way you made it, there are so many options!
Fresh Homemade Salsa | Erica Robbin
Fresh homemade salsa is the best!
Credit: ericarobbin.com
Ingredients
- Drizzle of olive oil
- 10-12 (2 lbs) roma tomatoes, cored, deseeded, and halved
- 3-5 tomatillos, cored, deseeded, and halved
- 1/2 medium white onion
- 2-5 jalapeño peppers, halved
- 2 serrano peppers, halved
- 3-6 garlic cloves
- 1 teaspoon fresh oregano, roughly chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon salt, depending on taste and chips you pair the salsa with
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
- 1/4 lime, juiced
FRESH HOMEMADE SALSA:
Directions
- FRESH HOMEMADE SALSA:
- Reserve 1-2 tomatoes (diced), 1-2 tomatillos (diced), 1-2 jalapeños (finely diced), 1 serrano (finely diced), as well as a small handful of onion (finely diced) and 1-2 garlic cloves (minced) to add at the end for a brighter flavor and added texture.
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (191 C) and cook remaining tomatoes, tomatillos, onion, jalapeños, and serranos in a shallow baking sheet drizzled with olive oil, skin sides up, and covered with lid or aluminum foil for about 15-20 minutes, adding the garlic cloves at the last 5 minutes of cooking time so they don’t burn and become bitter. The vegetables will begin to soften and skins will begin to peel away. *If you prefer a really smoky taste, you can cook the vegetables on top rack of oven, uncovered for a shorter amount of time at 425-450 degrees F (218-232 C) until the skins blacken. Just note that cooking, though adding a deeper flavor profile, will cause the vegetable colors to darken and dull, so roasting at a high heat for a shorter amount of time can help with that if keeping a relatively vibrant color of salsa is also what you are wanting to achieve.
- Once vegetables have softened (or blackened), allow to cool and peel away skins.
- Dice the cooked tomatoes, tomatillos, and onion, finely dice the jalapeños, serranos, and finally mince the garlic.
- Lightly pulse blend/process cooked vegetables to desired texture.
- Then combine all vegetables (cooked and reserved uncooked, as well as oregano, cumin, and salt) in sauce pan and cook on med-high heat for 5 min.
- Remove from heat and add cilantro and lime juice.
- Refrigerate for 2 hours and enjoy! Flavor will also continue to develop with additional refrigeration time.
