I’m taking a break from the sweet stuff to bring this salsa to your attention. The original recipe comes from The Pioneer Woman. You’ve heard of her, right? We’ve been eating this salsa just as fast as I can make it, and every time I make it, it comes out just a little differently. The really nice thing with this recipe is that you can customize it a hundred different ways. Hate cilantro? Leave it out. Want your salsa hotter? Add more jalapeno.
After making eight or nine batches, here’s my spin on the recipe:
We like our salsa less liquidy, so I briefly drain the tomatoes, and then add in some of the tomato juice at the end.
I also dislike getting chunks of raw onion and jalapeno in my salsa, so I process them into very small pieces first
And finally, I like more lime juice than the original recipe calls for, so I use the juice of a whole lime.
My version of the recipe is after the jump.
Salsa
Adapted from The Pioneer Woman cooking website
Makes about 3 cups, give or take
1/4 cup chopped onion (I use about 1/4 of a medium onion)
1-2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/2 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1/4 cup cilantro
1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes with juice, drained and juice reserved
2 cans (10 ounces each) Rotel tomatoes, drained
1 Tbs sugar
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
Juice of one lime
In a food processor finely chop onions, garlic, jalapeno and cilantro. Add in whole tomatoes, Rotel tomatoes, sugar, salt, pepper, cumin and lime juice. Pulse until the salsa is the consistency you want, adding some of the reserved tomato juice if you feel it is a little dry. Taste and adjust for seasoning, then refrigerate for a couple of hours before eating.
Made this again tonight with your suggestion of taking the juice out. I added 2 serrano peppers with the seeds, it was perfect. I plugged this into Weigh Watchers Points cruncher (I calculated this recipe as 6 servings) and it came out to 1 point which is great! Add a serving of Baked Tostito Scoops (2 points) and it is a good snack. I am pondering making my own tomatoes and rotel from fresh to see how that would be. My dad cannot have any MSG so I am trying to adapt as many recipes I can for him. Let me know if you have any suggestions
I have shared your recipe with several people but as you will not be surprised to hear that this is way to healthy for me. I’m into the sugary fixes. LOL I hope the people I shared it with will comment on their findings.
I think one of the joys of cooking at home is that subtle variation of flavor you get with each preparation. With the store-bought salsa, you know each jar tastes just like the one before. In fact, the companies have testers and chemically reproduced flavors to ensure each batch tastes the same.
I will keep encouraging Trista to make it thicker and thicker, though. If there is such a thing as “salsa paste,” that would be my preference. A tomato-based hummus, maybe. Hon, get to work on that
We make this salsa about once a week. Mark can now make it in his sleep. But he changes it up a bit each time too. He has decided the best way to keep me from gobbling it up is to make it hot as hell. Bring on the jalapenos and I will stay away.