Roasted Chipotle Salsa
The ingredients to a good salsa is really no secret. Go to the grocery store, find your favorite natural salsa and look at the ingredients on the back. There are a couple things that this recipe does differently though! I like to add a touch of veggie broth powder or concentrate to the mix to add some flavor. In the past I have always made my salsas completely raw, but this time I decided to do something a little different. I threw all of the vegetables, except the cilantro, into the oven under the broiler for 15 minutes in hopes that the roasting would deepen the flavors and add complexity to the dish. Well, I was right. It's an extra step but made some damn good salsa. If you are a salsa lover I recommend giving this a shot! ✌️💚
I encourage you to not focus on measurements for this recipe as the tomatoes, green pepper, garlic, and herbs all come in different shapes and sizes. Just eyeball it and feel it out! I included a picture of all of the vegetables on my baking tray to give you a good idea. After you season, taste, stir, and taste again until you like it.
Homemade will always taste different than store bought salsa, even if you use the exact same ingredients. It should taste noticeably fresher. The other advantage of making your own salsa is that you can control how much salt you add, store bought salsa often packs a lot of sodium!
Ingredients
- Your favorite tortilla chips
- 1-2 lbs. of tomatoes (or 3 cups chopped) - Seriously, just use a bunch of tomatoes, whatever feels right
- 1 small green pepper (Or cut a large one in half)
- 2-3 cloves of fresh garlic
- 1/2 large yellow onion or 1 small yellow onion
- 1 jalapeno pepper
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- 1/2 - 1 tsp. ground cumin
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. chipotle powder
- 1 tsp. - 1 1tbsp. fresh lime juice (optional)
- 1/2 tsp. veggie broth paste or powder (optional)
Note: Look at the image of my baking sheet below to get a general idea of the amount of vegetables that I used.
Directions
1. Preheat the broiler on your oven.
2. Place the tomatoes, green pepper, onion, garlic, and the jalapeño on a greased baking sheet. Cut the tomatoes, green pepper, and onion into chunks (see image below). Do not remove the shell of the garlic. Do not cut the jalapeño. I also used some small cherry tomatoes for this, that I did not cut.
3. Bake under the broiler for approximately 15 minutes - Check after 10 minutes to make sure nothing is burning. When they are finished they should soften and look something like the image below.
4. Remove the baking tray from the oven and allow the vegetables to cool to room temperature.
5. Remove the seeds from the jalapeño if you do not like heat. Remove the seeds from the green pepper. Remove the shells from the garlic. Note: For those that do not like heat, you may still add the entire jalapeño pepper. As long as you do not add any of the seeds there will be NO heat.
6. Add all of the vegetables to a food processor along with the cumin, salt, vegetable broth powder or paste.
7. Use the pulse control on your food processor and process to the consistency of salsa, you can take a closer look at the image at the top of this post if you need a reference.
8. Transfer the salsa to a bowl and then taste. If you need to adjust the seasoning or salt, do so and then stir with a spoon. Do not keep blending the mixture in the food processor because the salsa will turn into a paste, which is undesirable. Add the chipotle pepper powder slowly, testing for heat as you go.
9. Add the lime juice, stir, and taste. - I find that depending on the acidity of your tomatoes sometimes I only need very little lime juice, or maybe even none at all!
10. Once you are satisfied with your seasoning, grab some tortilla chips and enjoy!
Notes:
- If your tomatoes aren't that sweet add 1 tsp. of sugar to your salsa.
- This salsa tastes even better after it has sat in your refrigerator for a day and the flavors have had a chance to develop and marinate!