Super Simple Salsa in 20 minutes or less!
Note: All of the fresh produce in these photos was purchased from Scotts Valley Market!
What’s great about this salsa is that there’s NO measuring! You can whip this up in 20 minutes or less! Add some fresh Avocados, Tortilla Chips, Shrimp, and Beans or Rice and you have a meal!
Tomatoes are, of course, the “heart” of this classic Salsa and the tomato of choice is Roma, which is the meatiest tomato with a ratio of relatively little juice and seeds.
The problem with making Salsa this time of year (late Winter), is that tomatoes are not at their peak, especially locally, but there are workarounds. The best overall solution is to buy a combination of tomato varieties, such as Roma and “Vine-Ripened” tomatoes. The Romas will add the body and texture, while the vine-ripened tomatoes will add much better “tomatoey” flavor and color to the party. Another excellent option is to buy Roma and Heirloom Tomatoes (organic or conventional). The Large Purpleheart Heirloom tomato is very meaty and will add great depth-of-flavor and deep, rich color.
Making the Salsa
The ratios in this recipe could not be simpler! It’s 1:1:1:1:1!!!
No need to measure! You can easily ‘eyeball’ it! If you use ~2 cups of chopped Tomato, use ~2 cups of chopped Onion, and ~2 cups (before chopping) of Cilantro. Use 1 lime and however many hot chiles, such as Jalapeño or Serrano you prefer. Let’s start with the tomatoes:
Grab a colander and place a wide soup dish under the colander. Chop up some tomatoes. Just eyeball it so it look something like this:
Sprinkle salt on the tomatoes and let them drain while you start chopping an onion. You can use a Red, Yellow, White, Vidalia, Maui onion, it doesn't matter. You can also do a blend of onion and Green Onion, which adds a little brighter, fruitier flavor.
Chop enough onion so that it looks approximately the same size as the tomato, like this:
Slice a lime in half and juice half of it with a manual juicer. Pour the lime juice over the onion and stir. The lime juice will “cook” the onions in the same way lime juice “cooks” the seafood in Ceviche. Doing this will cut the sharpness off the onion and make them much sweeter.
Next, pick the leaves off of a bunch of fresh Cilantro. Again, just eyeball the amount to be approximately the same as the onion and tomato before chopping.
Rough chop the Cilantro like this:
Next, slice 1,2 or more chiles, such as Jalapeños or, if you like it muy picanté, use Serrano chiles. Chop the chiles fairly finely.
Add the chopped Cilantro and Chiles to the onion, juice the other half of the lime and add to the mix.
Give the colander with the tomatoes a gentle shimmy-shake to drain as much juice as possible and add the tomatoes to the Onion-Cilantro-Chile mix.
Important: In the soup dish under the colander, you’ll find a delicious broth of fresh, fairly salty tomato juice, almost like Gazpacho. Do not throw it away! You can just drink it down, or even better, use it to add a fresh tomato kick to our popular Bloody Mary recipe!
There you have it! In 20 minutes or less, you have DEE-luscious Salsa Fresca! You’re welcome! Remember, we have Restaurant-Quality Tortilla Chips at Scotts Valley Market which we make every day!
