by Eating Healthy with Chili Peppers: This series will walk through the advantage of adding chili peppers to your meals to kick up the taste and the heat while keeping the calories down.
Prior Post: Fresh, Dried, Pickled, Roasted, or Smoked? What’s the Best Way to Eat Chilis?
Salsa is a quick and easy thing to make, and it can kick up any of a number of dishes without adding extra calories, fat, or sodium. Depending on how you make it, this condiment can be packed with fresh vegetables, and — even if you use canned tomatoes as your base (as I do in the recipe below) — it still has plenty of good nutrition. Below is the first of three quick and easy salsas that can liven up plenty of meals.
This is an easy salsa recipe that you can throw together with ingredients you likely already have in your kitchen and/or you can improvise with some of your own additions.
Ingredients:
1 Can (28 oz) Petite Diced Tomatoes
1/4 Cup Sweet Onion, Diced
1 to 2 Jalapenos (or Serranoes or Both), Diced
1 Tablespoon Cilantro, Chopped
Juice of 1 Lime
Touch of Honey
Salt and Pepper to Taste
Directions:
I always have a jar of store-bought salsa in the pantry or fridge, but there is nothing quite like the taste of fresh salsa, and the fact is that it this pretty easy to make. At its most basic, salsa is just tomatoes, onions, and chilis with a few additional seasonings. What I have provided here is a starter recipe, but don’t feel bound by these ingredients. Be creative and add what you like to make it your own unique creation.
To start, combine the lime juice with the honey (about a drop or two of the latter) in a medium bowl and mix until the honey is dissolved (you can substitute brown sugar for the honey, using maybe a teaspoon or so). Then add everything else but the salt and pepper and stir well. If you are using canned tomatoes that already have salt, you may not need to add any more. I usually add the pepper (preferably fresh-cracked) then taste and decide if any additional salt is necessary.
If you want a chunky salsa, then your next step at this point is to insert a tortilla chip and start working your way to the bottom of the bowl! I prefer a smoother salsa, so I take the immersion blender to the mixture and puree until the salsa is smooth (as pictured above). If you don’t have one of those . . . then go get one now! (They are incredibly useful in the kitchen.) Or transfer the salsa to the blender and blend until desired consistency.
If you are making chunky salsa and are using canned diced tomatoes (as opposed to petite diced) or whole canned tomatoes, you will want to put those under the knife to chop them up into smaller pieces. That is not necessary if you are going to puree the salsa, though. You can also use fresh tomatoes or a combination of fresh and canned. If using fresh tomatoes, go with five to six of the medium-sized fruits (yes, a tomato is a fruit!) and dice them up well. I often go with two 10 oz cans of Ro*Tel Tomatoes and add a fresh tomato or two as well.
If you are going with jalapenos as your chili pepper of choice in this dish, it will be a milder salsa unless you happened to pick your pod from a hotter batch. I usually do one jalapeno and one serrano chili, and that gives it more of a kick, around Medium heat on my sacle. And when I want it hotter, I go with two serranoes and/or even hotter chilis.
Some people cannot stand the taste of cilantro (I hear there is a treatment for that these days), and that is not essential to this salsa (though I always prefer to include the herb). If you don’t like it, you can just leave it out or maybe chop up a green onion and add it as a substitute. But, for the love of God, DO NOT add parsley as some people will suggest. The flavor profile is all wrong and parsley has NO BUSINESS in salsa!
As for other ingredients to add, I generally just look at what I have in the fridge and decide if it will go good with the sauce. If I have some red bell pepper or a New Mexico chili, I might throw those in. Corn or mango would be a good addition as well (if you are going to puree the salsa, add those afterward). Or any other chili peppers you have could be added, just note how hot they are and who will be eating it. Another variation is to roast the vegetables in the oven or on the grill before adding them to the salsa. But I will be talking about that in more detail in a future post.
Salsa is of course great with chips and on Mexican food, but it can be used for many different things. Eat it with eggs (or scramble eggs with the salsa), top a burger or a hot dog, add it to meatloaf, or make ice cream with it! (Okay . . . tread lightly on that last suggestion). And once you have tasted fresh salsa that you have made yourself, you will have a hard time going back to the stuff in a jar. It’s certainly good to have a bottle from the store around in case you need it (and we always need salsa), but the fresh stuff is really the best!
And remember, salsa is a low-calorie and healthy dish (especially if you follow the recipe above). And it is a great way to add flavor without the guilt!
Up Next: Quick & Easy Pico de Gallo
