Easy Mexican Red Tomato Salsa
The two most common salsas in Mexico are salsa roja, a red salsa prepared with tomatoes and salsa verde, a green salsa prepared with tomatillos. Both are versatile salsas enjoyed with a wide variety of dishes. Every family has its favorite variations. Give this very easy recipe for an authentic salsa roja a try. Guaranteed happiness! Make a double batch to freeze so that you always have salsa on hand when you want it.
Fresh Ingredients Make the Best Salsa
Fresh ingredients always make the best salsas. Make sure that your tomatoes are really red and ripe which gives the salsa better color and a richer flavor. Really fresh cilantro give the salsa a nice herbal tang. Avoid tired wilted cilantro because it has lost much of its flavor.
Homemade Salsa is Always Better
Homemade salsa is always better. It really doesn’t take much work and the results are so much more delicious. Once you get in the habit of making salsa from scratch you will never buy salsa again. Your tastebuds just won’t let you. Really!
Time to make some salsa! Provecho!
Easy Salsa Roja
Ingredients
- 5 plum Roma tomatoes
- 1 white onion
- 12 stalks of cilantro
- 2 serrano chiles
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon salt + salt to taste
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 4 cups water
Instructions
- Cut the onion in quarters
- Cut the tomatoes in half
- Cut the stems off the chiles
- Peel the garlic
- Add all of the ingredients except the cilantro and salt to a pot
- Our just enough water in to almost cover the ingredients (about 4 cups)
- Bring the water to a boil and then reduce to low. Simmer 20 minutes
- Blend all of the ingredients including the cilantro with the cooking water (blend in 2 batches)
- Heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil in the same pot over medium heat
- Pour the blended salsa into the hot oil
- Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes
- Adjust the salt to taste
Notes
- With 2 serrano chiles the salsa is medium hot. Reduce the quantity of chiles to 1 if you prefer a mild salsa or increase the quantity to 3 if you prefer a very hot salsa.
- You don't need to remove the seeds and veins from the chiles.
- This salsa freezes very well.
- Divide the salsa into 2 cup batches and pour into freezer bags. The next time you need salsa you will have four 1/2 cup portions ready to use.
Nutrition
More Mexican Salsa Recipes
Mexico has an endless variety of incredible salsas. Here are a few more that we are sure you will enjoy. Which one is your favorite? They are all worth a try.
Did you enjoy this recipe? Any questions?
Please let us know in the comments below if you have prepared this salsa and how it turned out for you. Also, if you have any questions on preparation you can let us know in the comments too.
kurt youngmann says
October 22, 2016 at 10:34 pmThanks for the salsa recipe! It’s just what I was looking for.
Question: do you know what chiles costeños are? I have a recipe that calls for them but can’t figure out what they might be.
Douglas Cullen says
October 22, 2016 at 10:38 pmGlad you like the recipe. The costeño is a dried chile related to the guajillo. You might want to try substituting guajillos for the costeños. Cheers!
Bee says
October 20, 2017 at 12:46 pmDid he even try it?! These quantities result in a pan of watery,orange bland goo! Might went straight down thew toilet.From the other comments it appears I am not alone in this experince.Thank you Douglas for wasting my time and tomatoes!
Sandy says
October 23, 2018 at 6:33 pmYou didn’t do it right lmaoo
Kym says
February 5, 2017 at 8:34 pmI followed the instructions to a T and it turned out horrible — bland, almost orange (not red) in color, and not spicy at all (2 serranos added). It’s also watery to the point of being a soup! I’m going to have to try to save at least a little bit of it and add it to some salsa verde that (thank goodness) I had in the fridge already. :/ I guess no short cuts will ever beat the real deal.
Janet says
July 23, 2017 at 4:38 pmI added a can of tomato paste and some ground jalepeno powder and it came out great!
Valerie aguilar says
July 31, 2017 at 5:11 pmI never add water when I make salsa. Admittedly I only ever make salsa verde because that’s what I prefer but if I made this I would remove the ingredients from the pot and put them straight into the blender no water needed. I also boil my tomatillos whole which keeps the liquid in so I would probably do that with the tomatoes as well.
Bee says
October 20, 2017 at 12:36 pmThis exactly! Wish I had read the comments first.Waste of food,gas and effort!
Josh says
September 19, 2017 at 12:09 pmI too tried this recipe and it was way too watery. I ended up cooking the salsa for another 20 minutes (total of 60 minutes simmering) and after it was cooled I ran it through the blender as the skins were still in the salsa and just kind of stringy. When I make salsa again I will likely cube or dice the tomatoes first and only add 1 cup of water at most.
Bee says
October 20, 2017 at 12:44 pmYup really particularly bad recipe.It felt wrong as I was looking at the blender mix.It doesn’t even make good soup so it went down the toilet.
Bee says
October 20, 2017 at 12:29 pmI followed your instructions fastidiously.However I now have a big pan of runny orange soup.
The frying off stage simply doesn’t work with that quantity of water in the mix.
Have I misunderstood something?
Darryl says
April 25, 2018 at 10:04 pmThis recipe is great as long as you don’t use all of the cooking water when adding the vegetables to the blender. If you do, you’ll end up with the runny, watery “soup” that commenters above complained about. Spoon the boiled vegetables into the blender, then add the water from the pan *as needed* to liquify the ingredients. You need maybe half the amount of water that you boiled the ingredients with. And if it’s still too watery, simmer it for longer during the final stage until the consistency is right. I think the recipe should be re-worded a little to reflect this issue.
That said, it’s a solid base recipe to add to and tweak as you see fit in regards to ingredients and “feel”. I made this and added a few flourishes: cumin, Spanish smoked paprika (inauthentic, but fabulous), a few dashes of Tajin spice, and once the salsa was blended I added the zest of 1 lime and the juice of half of it. I felt that my tomatoes – out of season and not spectacular – needed some extra zing.
Dave says
July 29, 2018 at 11:09 amLive and learn Mexican cooks. It ain’t a perfect world. The color varies with different chilies. Not using dried guajillo’s it’s gonna be pink. You can thicken it with torn corn tortillas or meal then place in a blender and puree to thicken (NOTE – do not add hot ingredients into a blender – it will blow hot liquid everywhere from the released steam – don’t ask how I know this). You can change the taste using your imagination. Dried chilies are almost always bitter.
Laura says
September 14, 2018 at 11:52 pmI used the suggestion to use about half the cooking liquid maybe less. It turned out as expected for me. I used a variety of very ripe homegrown tomatoes and homegrown serrano chiles. Flavor was great. I used a Vitamix to completely blend everything so skins and seeds disappeared. The Vitamix lets steam escape so no issue in blending hot ingredients.
Misty says
June 14, 2019 at 3:39 pmWhen I made this I changed a few of the steps I put the vegetables in the water just long enough for the water to come to a boil then I put it into food processor while the vegetables were still firm and pulsed them a few time. I use jalapeños instead of Serrano. I add 4x more garlic, a can of tomatoes and tomato paste lots of salt and the juice of half a lemon. It turned out good for my 1st attempt at making salsa