Hi Everyone,
If you follow me on Instagram, you know I have tomatoes and peppers coming out of the butt. Not literally. 🙂 I asked you what should I do with all of these peppers and tomatoes? I had a lot of great suggestions from you. One of your suggestions, was already in the pipe line, which is today’s recipe. One of the best things you can make using fresh tomatoes and peppers is homemade salsa. It beats any kind sold in a grocery store. I love salsa! Today I have for you a simple Serrano Pepper Salsa.
This recipe exceeded my expectations. I’ll be honest, I never used Serrano Peppers, and I wasn’t sure of the flavor, but they added a nice heat without making the salsa too spicy. I like hot, but not when it is so unbearable that you can’t taste the flavors of your food, it’s not worth it. The salsa is a basic traditional salsa flavor with a hint of garlic, a little heat and just a pinch of cilantro. I didn’t use much cilantro because I am not big on the flavor.
For the tomatoes, I used Roma Tomatoes that I picked fresh in the morning. If you can use homegrown tomatoes, it blows the flavor away. I like Roma Tomatoes because they do not hold a lot of water and they do not have a lot of seeds. Perfect for Italian dishes and Mexican ones too.
The star to any kind of salsa besides the tomatoes is cumin. I fell in love with cumin when I started making my own humus. It adds such a great flavor and is a key ingredient in salsa. Trader Joe’s sells it and so does McCormick.
To make the salsa, I blended half of the tomatoes with the garlic, peppers, cilantro and onion in my food blender. This gives it a runnier texture, which is what I wanted. Plus it blended all of the ingredients nicely. I poured the salsa into a bowl, and mixed in the remaining tomatoes, cumin, salt & pepper. I placed it back in the blender and basically pulsed it for a few seconds. I wanted to keep the chunky texture of the tomatoes, but I didn’t want to have huge chunks. I think it turned out great and I like that I made it in the blender so I didn’t have to use my food processor. The food processor is such a pain to clean.
- 3 cups tomatoes, diced, seeded, divided
- 2 clove garlic, chopped small
- ½ cup red onion, diced small
- 3 serrano peppers, seeded, chopped small
- 1 tbsp cilantro (Use more if you'd like)
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp, ground pepper
- 1 tsp. cumin
- In a blender add 1 cup tomatoes, garlic, serrano peppers and cilantro; blend until everything is incorporated.
- Pour salsa into a bowl, and stir in remaining 2 cups tomato, salt, pepper, and cumin; mix until well combined. Add mixture back into a blender and process until tomatoes broke down, but still chunky. I did this for about 10 seconds on low speed.
- Pour into a serving bowl, refrigerated until ready to serve.
- Will keep for about 5 days.
I served my salsa with tortilla chips, but it is also great on tacos, or placing over some grilled chicken to add a boost of flavor. There are so many things you can do with salsa, the possibilities are endless.
My Husband had some salsa for his Sunday snack. He was surprised on how red the salsa is. It is fresh tomatoes baby! He wasn’t sure because he never seen such red salsa.
I am really happy with my Serrano Peppers and I can’t wait to experience them in other recipes. I am glad I am growing them in my garden. So stay tune for other Serrano Pepper recipes.
Have a great day and a wonderful week!
Toodles,
Jennifer
Chocolate Banana Snack Cake (One Pan)
Caramelized Herb Roasted Carrots
Caramelized Butternut Squash
Green Protein Salad #createwithcrisp
That is the best looking salsa ever!
What KIND of blender do you have that leaves tomatoes that chunky? 2 second and it’s puree in mie
Hi Arty! I used my mini food processor, and it doesn’t chop great. Just hit pulse a couple of times on your blender or you can chop some of the tomatoes by hand and place them in your salsa.
I have a lot of Serrano peppers and tomatoes. I need a recipe for canning salsa.
Not the best thing do I know can you use canned tomatoes ?
if i ever asked anyone what to do with all my tomatoes and chiles they’d probably tell me to stick them UP my butt!
since the pandemic it became virtually impossible to obtain organic jalapeños anymore so i finally bought a serrano plant and am about to try to use one of those to make a small amount of salsa.
i always roast the chiles first but may try the serrano raw to see what happens.
i make a very simple salsa based on what my late mother-in-law used to do although she used yellow peppers, and we just add the onion and cilantro (which i have never been able to grow despite numerous attempts) directly to the tacos.
i love cumin, put it in my hummus and enchilada sauce and maybe i’ll follow your suggestion to include it in my salsa. i used to use a molcajete but now just depend on our tiny food processor. your pictures are great but for me the Romas aren’t red enough and we wait all year for dry-farmed tomatoes with their intense flavor.