Kitchen Tip #4: Homemade Salsa

One of my most requested recipes is for homemade salsa. Every time we have a get-together with my Bible study group, the girls ask for it, and, honestly, I have to agree that it is pretty delicious. I could eat fresh salsa everyday, but then again, there is a small part of me that I truly believe is Latina.

Now I will make salsa during any season of the year, but when the hot days of summer arrive--as they have here in Tennessee--that is when I most crave it. In less than 15 minutes, I can prepare a cool, refreshing bowl of salsa that I can eat on for several days. It's healthy, satisfying, and just makes me feel happy. Plus, in the dead of summer, when our garden is pumping out more tomatoes and peppers than we can handle, fresh salsa is the perfect way to use them up.

I know there are more recipes for salsa than you can shake a stick at, but here is my tried and true recipe that is so easy you will wonder why you have been buying jarred salsa all this time!

Note: As with all of my recipes, I use whatever ingredients I have on hand. If I don't have a red bell pepper, I'll use only green. If I don't have fresh tomatoes, I'll use canned. Make do with what you've got!

Homemade Salsa

Ingredients

1 green bell pepper
1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper
1 jalepeno (with seeds removed for less heat)
1 small onion
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 cups fresh tomatoes, or 1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes, drained
juice of 1/2 a lime
1-2 fresh cilantro sprigs, cut up (I use my kitchen shears to do this.)
salt & pepper to taste

Directions

1. Gather your ingredients.



2. Roughly chop up your bell peppers, onion, jalapeno, and garlic with knife. You just want to chop it up enough so that you can get into the food processor. Let the food processor do most of the work for you.

3. Put in food processor or mini chopper and pulse or chop. If you want a chunkier salsa, pulse only 2-3 times.



4. Put the mixture into a bowl and add the remaining ingredients. I usually drain my tomatoes because over time in the fridge, the peppers will give off a lot of water, making your salsa pretty soupy. However, as you can see in the picture below, I forgot to drain them and it's pretty juicy. Also, you may need to add a good bit of salt, but the amount is up to you.



5. Enjoy! I love to just eat my salsa with tortilla chips, but on occasion, I'll heat up some corn tortillas and refried beans and throw some salsa on top. Also, for breakfast, I will put some fresh salsa on top of my scrambled eggs. Yummy!

How do you make your salsa? And what do you like to eat it with?

This post is linked to Things I Love Thursdays at The Diaper Diaries and Finer Things Friday.