Homemade Restaurant-Style Salsa

Hey there folks! Today, my good friend Caitlin of Inside The Breadbox will be sharing a recipe with us. We've known each other for about 5 years now, and if there's one thing I'm confident Caitlin knows, it's Mexican food. I made this recipe last weekend and it was the best salsa I've had in years.

My husband, Ben, and I went on a mini-vacation to Melbourne Beach a few weekends back and had a blast. Time slowed down for us as we really focused on enjoying each other and this chance to really unwind. On the way home we talked about our favorite parts of the "vacation" -- we said things like just being together, the breezy beach Saturday morning, our fantastic Indian feast Friday night, seeing a sea turtle lay her eggs early Sunday morning... and the salsa at Cantina Dos Amigos for dinner Saturday night... yes, the salsa. It was fantastic. As I tried to pile on as much salsa per broken piece of chip as humanly possible, I resolved right then that I would figure out how to make salsa as good as this...
 

We got back at 5:00 p.m. after a tiring, HOT few hours' jaunt at Gatorland in Orlando, and I did just that. I was very pleased with the result.

 

This is a REAL photograph of the deliciousness that resulted from my mission to develop a salsa as tasty as the one we enjoyed at Cantina Dos Amigos...

 

 

Ingredients:(Makes enough to fill two16-oz. salsa jars!)

1 1/2 cans of plain diced tomatoes, juices included
3-4 green onions, white parts included (not the roots)
1 small yellow onion, quartered
a few chunks or more of a red onion
1/3 cup fresh cilantro
4 cloves fresh garlic, peeled
juice of 1 small lime
~ 1 tsp sea salt
about 4 seconds' shaking of Tabasco sauce (optional)

Put all ingredients in a food processor in no particular order and process until desired consistency is reached... some folks like it chunky, some folks like it smooth... I like it a little in between. :)

 

The beauty of making homemade salsa is that it is very forgiving. I have found that as long as I start with the base of 1.5 standard-sized cans of the tomatoes (and you can really use ANY kind you want, doesn't have to be plain), the result is really good! You can totally leave out the red onion, add more cilantro, more Tabasco, change the hot sauce or omit it completely, or fiddle with the amount of garlic cloves. The second time I made salsa I halved the garlic cloves, increased the cilantro, added more Tabasco, and use fire-roasted adobo-seasoned diced tomatoes, along with the half of a can I had left of the plain stuff from the first time. And it was even better!

You can even add ingredients! Add some whole black beans or yellow corn with some chili powder... or, I dare ya, some pineapple!

 

But I'm definitely done with the expensive, jarred crap. Even with sales and coupons, it's still really expensive for a small jar. I tend to have the ingredients listed on hand at all times, so it is not only fast, but very easy to prepare.

 

Enjoy... preferably with tortilla chips made with organic or non-GMO corn... try the blue ones at Aldi or Target! ;-) Thanks for hosting me, Hannah!