Hatch Green Chile Heirloom Tomato Chunky Salsa
Fall is the time to make delicious fresh salsas like this Hatch Green Chile Heirloom Tomato Salsa. It's so flavorful and refreshing, and buying the ingredients is a great way to support your farmers' markets before it gets too cold for an outdoor market. If you buy your salsa canned or bottled during the rest of the year, I hope you'll get to try this for a real treat.
Servings 2 quarts
Ingredients
- 5 roasted Hatch chile peppers I used mild
- 3-4 pounds Heirloom tomatoes chopped fine
- ½ mild red onion about ¼ cup, finely chopped
- 1 serrano pepper finely minced (adjust to taste)
- ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro plus a small handful for garnish
- 1 teaspoon pressed garlic or 1 pinch garlic powder, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon salt to add at the end, see note
Instructions
- For this recipe I used freshly roasted green chiles that I bought at the Farmer’s market. If you would like to roast your own, follow steps 2 and 3 below.
- Set oven rack about 6 inches from the heat source and preheat the oven's broiler. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil; add Hatch chile peppers.
- Cook under the preheated broiler until the skin of the peppers has blackened and blistered, 5 to 8 minutes. Place blackened peppers into a bowl and tightly seal with plastic wrap. Allow peppers to steam as they cool, about 20 minutes. Remove and discard skins.
- Scrape off the blackened skins of the peppers. Scrape out the seeds and discard (I don’t like the seeds in my salsas but you can leave some for spiciness if you like). Chop the peppers finely, about ¼ inch dice.
- Stir the chopped, roasted Hatch chile peppers, tomatoes, onion, cilantro, and garlic or garlic powder together for a chunky salsa. If the heirloom tomatoes are very juicy, strain the salsa by placing it in a metal mesh strainer. Don’t discard the resulting juice -it’s great to drink fresh!
- If you prefer a blended salsa, whizz the salsa in a food processor or blender until desired consistency is reached.
- About salt: Heirloom tomatoes are sweet, and the salsa needs salt. If you add it right away, though, it will pull more of the liquid out of the tomatoes. If I’m making this salsa ahead of time I wait to salt it until just before serving.
- Garnish with extra cilantro and serve with chips or any meal that’s good with salsa.
Notes
Heirloom tomatoes are naturally juicy and adding salt will naturally draw even more liquid out of them. I recommend that you delay salting the salsa until just before serving to keep the tomatoes from getting very soft and the salsa from getting watery.
Adapted from this recipe