If this salsa is a 10 then the best bottled salsa is about a 4. Sometimes the best product you can buy is the product you create yourself. That’s certainly true with salsa. So it’s pointless to try to compare this with anything that’s dramatically inferior.

This Salsa’s Origin and Evolution

James was introduced to a simpler form of this salsa by a college roommate from Mexico City. Upon watching his roommate make this he was shocked by the fact that part of the vegetables literally had to be burned. However, the result was spectacular and James fell in love with the recipe.

Over the years through certain suggestions by friends, other additions and accidents the ingredient list rose from four to seven vegetables. Those original four vegetables were tomatoes, cilantro, onion and jalapeños. Incredibly, this recipe now requires that there must be at least two or more different varieties of tomatoes. That tweak alone significantly increased the robustness of flavor to a new level. Still, relying on Mexican cooking intuition, all the ingredients are prepared the Mexican way.

Having tried salsa from many Mexican restaurants over the years James says he has yet [as of this writing] to find a salsa as good as this one. He did find one that came close. It was delicious and had an aspect that he knew was missing in his recipe. He asked the waitress what they put in their salsa. As she rattled off what was in it she mentioned one vegetable that they charred and blended in. That vegetable was the green bell pepper became the seventh and final addition to this recipe here!

True Story

A few years ago James and his wife were visiting some Mexican friends for the purpose of teaching them how to make this salsa. The Mexican wife’s sister happened to be there visiting from Mexico and was planning to fly home the following day. She was amazed at how good it was so she filled a jar to take back home. Some time later James talked to her on another visit. She told him that her friends were blown away. She said that her friends couldn’t believe that it was possible that a gringo had made this!

James has stated that this recipe is his most popular and by the late 1990's it had already has been enjoyed by people from every continent on this planet except, of course, Antarctica. So it is only fitting that this salsa has become the flagship product review on Salsa Stop!

Step by Step Pictorial Recipe:

Ingredients to Make Approximately One Gallon [Scale Up or Down as Needed]

Anomated photo with Two cast iron pans with one of them full swiching to both full

2 or 3 types of red ripe tomatoes [4 lbs. total]
3 Red bell peppers
3 Green bell peppers
6 Large tomatillos [husks removed]
1 or 2 large jalapeños
3 medium [or 2 large] white onions
½ bundle cilantro

The only type of pan we recommend to prepare this is the cast iron skillet [see below for our recommendations]. You will actually be burning part of the vegetables on a DRY cast iron skillet at a temperature of a little bit past medium as is seen in the animated photo. Do not use any type of oil or grease [you are preparing this using Mexican intuition]. This type of cooking is hard on most cookware and cast iron skillets are better suited to handle this. However expect to lose any seasoning you have on your cast iron skillets.

Start with the items to be burned. In the cast iron skillets [a 12" in the foreground and a 10" in the distance] you see we used two types of tomatoes [Campari^® and grape], jalapeño, and tomatillos burning in one skillet. If you have your own garden grown tomatoes then use those. In the cast iron skillet vegetables overflow [in the distance in the photos] put in whatever doesn't fit in the first skllet. On the cutting board note how the green bell peppers are cut into strips. These were put into the second overflow skillet with the other jalapeño and the remainder of the tomatoes.

Cilantro on a cutting board Cilantro in a mixing bowl While everything is "burning" on the stove it's time to prepare everyting else. In he next two photos you see that the cilantro is to be diced fine. The cilantro goes ino this handy 8 quart Stainless steel bowl.

Next dice fine the red bell peppers and the whilte onions. It's very handy to have on handy to have a vegetable chopper which makes quick work of this proceedure. All the diced vegetables go into the mixing bowl with the cilantro.

Vegetble chopper with red bell pepper Mixing bowl with diced cilantro, red bell pepper and onions The "Burned" vegetables are ready when they are charred on one side, raw on the other side and cooked in the middle on the side that's closest to the charred area [See how it looks in the cast iron pan in the photo below]. For the best blender salsa recipe it's important to scrape up as much of the charred remains on the surface of the skillet as is easy to scrape up and include it in the blender. The char adds a flavor boost to the vegetables not unlike how a grill's char stripes enhance the flavor of a New York Steak. You'll get enought that comes off easy to make the difference so it's OK if most still remains stuck to the skillet.

Cast iron pan with burned vegetables Animated photo Blender with unblended vegetables switches to blended vegetables Pour all the blended vegetables into the mixing bowl and add salt to taste [1 teaspoon might be a good start]. Mix well It never hurts to "single dip" with your favorite chip to see if it's salted correctly! See the photo below. Then adjust and mix againe accordingly.

Dipping a chip in the mixing bowl of finished salsa

NOTE ON CLEANING CARE OF CAST IRON SKILLETS AFTER USE:

Cover the bottom of the skillet with warm water for a few minutes. Then, before grabbing a scour pad, use a stiff THIN-EDGED metal-blade spatula [or kitchen scraper] tp scape off what remains of the burned on vegetables. When done cleaning dry the skillet on he stove at a warm seting to prevent rust from forming [this is how you mitigate skillet abuse]. With that said this salsa is so good you're going to want to do this again!