The Only Salsa You Need in Your Life

Good salsa is life. And store-bought salsa is a sad and expensive substitute for the kind of life you deserve to be living.

If you have one or two homemade salsa recipes up your sleeve, you can throw together a few kinds, rip open a giant bag of chips, slap some meat on the grill and have a spring/summer backyard get-together to rival anything Giada could host. (And Giada doesn't even make salsa so you've got a leg up already...)

I started making this basic restaurant salsa forever ago and it quickly became my go-to. It's simple; you dump the ingredients and pulse in the blender, it makes a giant batch (two full quart jars), keeps for weeks in the fridge and is made with ingredients I pretty much always have on hand.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!


Restaurant Salsa 
adapted from Pioneer Woman's recipe

2 cans diced tomatoes
2 cans Rotel  (I use one can regular and one can of mild, adjust for how spicy you like it)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 big handfuls cilantro (cilantro is also life)
2 Tbsp lime juice
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
(Opt. for those of you who like it HOT - chop and de-seed one jalapeño, add it to the mix)


Note: This makes a HUGE batch. It's a simple thing to half the recipe if you're not hosting a shin-dig and won't eat it quickly enough. But...if you're going to all the trouble to make your own salsa, you should probably throw a party and share the love.

Throw all your ingredients in a (large) blender or food processor and pulse 5-10 times until well-blended and at a consistency you like. Test with a tortilla chip and adjust seasonings to your preference. If you can, make this ahead of time and refrigerate for a few hours so the flavors can really blend.