I eat a lot of salsa. A LOT. I am rather notorious for this, in fact. My friend’s boyfriend once innocently asked if I had anything he could snack on — maybe some chips and salsa? My friend nearly fell on the floor laughing at the thought of me not having chips and salsa in the house. There is no risk of that. Ever.
So when my awesome world-traveling chef cousin came to town for a few days, she offered to teach me how to make roasted red salsa and tamales (more on that later). Can you imagine how much I hesitated? Not. At. All.
And people, this salsa. PEOPLE. With a lifetime of tasting, sampling, and gorging research on salsa, I have never in my life had salsa this good.
Note that this makes a lot — a big mixing bowl full. I’m too embarrassed to tell you how quickly it went here. 
Without further ado, I give you: The Best Salsa Ever:
- 16 full size tomatoes, or nearly a produce bag full of roma tomatoes (we used roma)
- 2-3 yellow onions
- 20-25 Serrano peppers (remove caps) Note: this many peppers makes it hot. Feel free to reduce # of peppers, or scrape the seeds out of them
- 8-10 cloves of garlic
- 1-2 Tbsp salt
- 1-2 bunches cilantro
- Halve the tomatoes and onions and lay cut-side up on a cookie sheet along with the peppers and garlic
- Roast at 375 till the onions look nice and translucent (see bottom left of the next picture), tomatoes look soft, and peppers are getting a nice char on them
- Let it all cool a bit, then run through the food processor with salt and cilantro (we had to do this in two batches)
- Stir it all together and eat with abandon. Trust me.
Update 6/24/09:
Got questions? Be sure to see the comments below from The Cousin — lots of great info from the salsa expert!
Best salsa I’ve ever tasted. I made only a few small adjustments. Instead of serranos, I used three jalapenos I had. I scraped the seeds out of two and kept the seeds in the third. I also added a pinch of sugar.
I made it tonight after work and had all these plans for things I could whip up to serve with it. Instead, it got eaten over the sink, right out of the bowl!
Thank you!!! I agree!!
And that’s almost always how I end up eating it. My sister and I ate it for lunch this week… and only this. Not sorry!
can you can this?
This has been discussed a bit (see the above comment from Diana C and my response) and the bottom line is that I’m just not sure. I’m not a canning expert at all, but I do know that canning requires specific acidity levels to be safely stored; since this recipe wasn’t designed for canning, it likely doesn’t have the required levels. It does, however, freeze fantastically. I freeze it in quart-size ziploc bags and it thaws out beautifully. I hope that helps!
This salsa is awesome!!! Spicy, flavorful, and authentic tasting. I made it over the weekend. I used roma’s, since there is much less juice. I estimated the number of tomatoes based on the recipe. In the end, after slicing the tomatoes in half, they filled two medium-large baking sheets. I also added the juice from six limes. I pressure canned it for the winter and it filled 8, 0.5 liter jars. Thanks a bunch.
my version is as follows – (equally delicious, 10x easier) :-p
2 cans plain-ole diced tomatoes (sometimes it’s 1 can normal, 1 can fire roasted)
1 onion, quartered
1 bunch cilantro, stems removed
salt to taste
sliced jalapeños to taste
food processor
gets spicier as time passes, even those who loathe cilantro will fall to their knees!
Hi there! This sounds yummy and I’m anxious to try it. I am canning salsa tomorrow, but this sounds great for a fresh batch for me and hubby. I love jalapenos but this year we did better with our serranos and I discovered I like them just as much if not more! Thanks!
I see folks asking about the consistency of their salsa being a little off. I have found if you do blend it,only do it for like a half second.. just enough to break everything up smaller. Any further blending just ruins it. We like ours sorta chunky and natural-like..not blended.
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So happy with the latest batch that I had to come re-comment. My boyfriend got me a great Cuisinart 11-cup food processor (http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=7106&PseudoCat=se-xx-xx-xx.esn_results) for Christmas and suggested this salsa recipe was the best first run. He was right — it was even better-tasting (and much easier!) this time than when I did it in several batches in a smaller machine Still great! Added about 1/4t each of sugar, cumin and coriander seed and used a mix of jalapeno and pasilla peppers, with about half the seeds scraped. Thanks again, and have a happy new year!
I make a similar salsa but use jalapenos instead since they seem to be a little less hot and about a tsp of cumin. I also add a small jar of roasted red bell peppers with the oil/vinegar juice it is canned in. It really adds a lot to the salsa. I hope you get a chance to try it that way. I’d be interested in your thoughts.
I just made it and I must have screwed something up. I tasted too much like tomato. I need to try it again maybe with smaller tomatoes.
Gracious, even with 25 peppers and 2 onions in it? ~OPK
Just wanted to drop a line to say thank you for this recipe. I’ve made it four times over the past couple of months (with a halved recipe) and just yesterday picked up the ingredients to make it again. It also went over really well at my Super Bowl party last month. This is a fantastic salsa and I urge those that stumble upon it to give it a try, ASAP.