Anyone Have A Good Homemade Salsa Recipe?

2 ancho dried peppers
1 chipotle dried pepper
1 pusilla dried pepper

Remove seeds from peppers.

5 tomatillos
3 roma tomatoes
1/2 coarse chopped yellow onion

1/2 cup fresh cilantro

1 t cumin
1 t white pepper
1 t mexican oregano
1/2 t black pepper
3 hole peeled cloves of garlic

1/2 cup of water

Toast dried peppers in a dry skillet or about 5 minutes

Put toated peppers in 3-4 cups of boiling water. Immediately reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes

Toast tomatoes (both types)and chopped onions in the dry skillet for 15 minutes or so. You will get a charred mark on only part of the tomatoes since they are round. The goal is to soften the tomatoes and onion, not totally cook them.

Place toasted tomatoes, onions, hydrated peppers, 1/2 cup water, cilantro and seasonings into a blender and mix on the chopped setting. I like to leave half the tomatoes out to get a good mix in the blender and then add them and mix for only a few seconds. This makes the salsa chunky.

Hint: The dried chipotle packs a punch. Put only 1/2 of the hydrated chipotle in the mix. After mixing do a taste to check spiciness. This warm salsa will be more spicy than after it is cooled in the fridge over night.

You can use about any dried pepper but some are hotter than others. Ancho is pretty mild, pusilla is medium and chipotle is hot. Arbol pepper is a good sub for chipotle in terms of heat. New Mexico pepper is a medium heat pepper that can be used instead of pusilla.

This whole process takes about 30 minutes.

ETA: Remove seeds from peppers.

You can riff on that recipe. Go all tomatillos (12 or so) to make a green salsa. Then I sometimes put the green salsa back in the skillet, bring to a boil, add peeled shrimp and use this as a sauce over all types of fish.

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Dallas Tiger

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any reason to use dried, rather than fresh peppers (other than availability)? i might try the recipe this weekend but use fresh peppers.

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any reason to use dried, rather than fresh peppers

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Dried peppers= more concentrated flavor and heat. I've used fresh peppers before but I tend to use the dried more often. I think they have a bit more richness to them. Especially the Ancho (dried poblano) and pusilla.

I forgot to say to remove the seeds from the dried peppers before toasting them.

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i think i fall on the side of preferring the texture and flavor of the fresh,

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There are a million ways to make salsa which makes it fun to experiment. I've been playing with the dried peppers for the last 6 weeks and have made 10 or so batches of salsa. The recipe I posted is the best recipe I've come up with for my pallet.

use sarrano peppers...the second poster replied, but add the sarrano peppers

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a store bought salsa that doesn't have vinegar

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.taste really great!!

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I'm gonna dip into some too!