Homemade salsa takes ten minutes and will improve every taco you make. There are only four methods to learn, and each one produces a different family of flavors.
Method 1: raw (cruda)
Blend or chop raw tomatillos or tomatoes with serrano, garlic, onion, cilantro, lime and salt. Bright, sharp and grassy. Best on fatty pork and grilled meat. Eat within a day.
Base recipe: 6 tomatillos, 2 serranos, 1 garlic clove, quarter white onion, handful cilantro, juice of half a lime, 1 teaspoon salt. Blend briefly, leaving texture.
Method 2: roasted (asada)
Char tomatoes or tomatillos, chiles, onion and unpeeled garlic on a dry comal or under a broiler until blackened in spots, then blend. Sweeter, smokier and rounder than raw.
Method 3: boiled (hervida)
Simmer the same vegetables in water for 10 minutes, then blend with a little cooking liquid. Milder and smoother, the style you find in plastic squeeze bottles at taquerías.
Method 4: fried oil-based (macha style)
Fry dried chiles, garlic and nuts or seeds in oil over low heat until fragrant, cool, then pulse coarsely. Rich, crunchy, and it keeps for weeks in the fridge.
Balancing a salsa
- Tastes flat? Add salt first, then acid.
- Too sharp? A pinch of sugar or a few more roasted tomatoes.
- Too hot? Add more tomato or tomatillo, or a little avocado.
- Too thin? Blend in a piece of roasted onion or a few soaked chile skins.
- Bitter? You burnt the chiles or garlic. Start that element again.
Equipment
A blender is fine. A molcajete gives better texture and a slightly different flavor because it crushes rather than shears, but it is not required to make excellent salsa.
Storage
Raw salsas last 2 to 3 days, cooked salsas 5 to 7, oil-based salsas a month. Always refrigerate in glass.
Where to start
Make the roasted tomatillo version first. It is forgiving, it goes with almost everything, and it will immediately show you why bottled salsa is a compromise.
