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Garden Fresh Salsa

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  • Author: Our Best Bites
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Refrigerator Time: 3 hours
  • Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes

Description

This fresh, homemade salsa is packed with fresh tomatoes, onions, and peppers. It’s texture and heat are completely flexible according to your preferences. Serve with tortilla chips, on baked potatoes, with any Latin-inspired dishes, or over grilled meats.


Ingredients

45 cups diced tomatoes, any variety (about 56 med/lg tomatoes, see notes)
1 cup diced onion (red or white)
1 poblano pepper (see notes)
1 Anaheim pepper (see notes)
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1  1/2 tablespoon minced garlic
3/4 cup chopped cilantro (slice it up stems and all)
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
1 teaspoons kosher salt
1/81/4 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
optional: 1 jalapeño, seeded and diced
1  5.3-ounce can tomato juice (that’s the little tiny can, half the size of a pop can)


Instructions

The first thing I do is roast my chili peppers. This can be done a day or two before if you’d like. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove seeds and membranes. slice into strips and place skin side up on a cookie sheet. Place the cookie sheet in the oven with your broiler set to high and stay close by to keep an eye on them. When the skins are blackened and bubbly, remove the cookie sheet from the oven and use tongs to immediately transfer the peppers to a gallon-size zip-top bag. Seal the bag and let them hang out while you get everything else ready. For alternate methods and further explanation, you can read all about How To Roast Peppers here.

While the peppers are cooking or steaming in the bag, combine tomatoes, onions, green onions, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, salt and chipotle powder, and the jalapeño if you’re using it. Stir to combine.

Remove peppers from zip-top bag, peel off and discard charred skins (they will come off easily), and chop. Add to salsa mixture and stir to combine.

Once that’s all stirred up, add tomato juice until it’s the consistency you like.

Process in a food processor (or carefully in a blender in really small batches) until it’s the consistency you prefer. I like mine on the chunky side.

Put salsa in a container in the fridge and leave it alone for several hours. It’s going to taste totally different when it comes out. Salsa has to sit around to reach perfection. Let it do its thing before you devour it and it will be a million times better.


Notes

  • If you don’t have that many tomatoes: use 2 less, omit the tomato juice, and add one can diced tomatoes instead. The flavor and texture of canned tomatoes actually works really well in fresh salsa, I do it all the time.
  • You can also substitute 1 green bell pepper for the poblano and Anaheim. No roasting is necessary with the bell pepper.