How To Make Tomato Salsa

Making tomato salsa is easy to do and once made it can be stored in the fridge for around five days. The beauty of home made tomato salsa is that you can make it as hot or mild as you like. Personally I like my salsa to have a bit more kick to it than the ones you buy ready made in the shops.

Also it is a great way to use up tomatoes if you have had a bumper crop and are fed up with making tomato soup or making tomato sauce. The tomato salsa is simple to make with it being a very basic combination of tomatoes, onion, chili peppers, and garlic and salt & pepper if you want to add more seasoning.

It is best served as a dip with nacho chips as a starter or “Nibbles” with a main meal, however you can also serve it as a side dish to a main meal as it goes well with salad, as well as meat and fish dishes. The basic salsa recipe is shown below, but note that there are several variations on how to prepared the ingredients, as an example you choose to peel the skin off the tomatoes to make a smoother salsa, or you may choose to leave the skins on and bake the tomatoes on a smoky barbecue. This will then give the salsa a smoky flavour when the tomatoes are added to it once cooled down. Like wise you can do the same to the chili and the garlic.

I always add garlic into mine to give it more flavour, but I know not everyone likes garlic, so you choose to leave it out. To make the spicy tomato salsa you will need: -

8 peeled tomatoes – Roma ones are the best but any peeled ones will do

2 to 4 Chilies (De-seeded) – Depending on how hot you want to make your salsa

4 to 6 cloves of Garlic

Salt and Pepper to season (If required)

1 Medium to large sized onion

3 Tablespoons of Olive oil

The juice of two freshly squeezed limes

You will then need to very finely dice the onion, the chilies and the tomatoes with a sharp knife, or you could use a blender but be careful not to over do it, as you want your salsa too have some texture and not be slushy. Use a garlic press to extract the garlic from the cloves, then to finish simply add all of the ingredients in to a large mixing bowl and stir together well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour, and then serve.

If you like this recipe then why not learn about how to grow tomatoes or try out my delicious recipe on Making Spicy Tomato Soup.

By Richard Allen -