The Best Salsa You'll Ever Make

I'm Saul Montiel. I'm a professional chef.

And today I wanna show you how to make delicious salsas.

Salsa fresca, salsa martajada,

and salsa morita.

Fresh salsa, charred salsa and cooked salsa.

There is so many different kinds of salsas up there,

all different from each other,

from texture, color, spiciness.

But these three salsas are the most common salsas in Mexico.

Let's make some salsa.

This is Salsa 101.

[gentle upbeat music]

[gentle guitar music] [graphics whooshing]

The first salsa that I'm gonna make

is gonna be salsa fresca.

Salsa fresca means fresh salsa

and that means that we can use vegetables, fruit,

but we need to keep them raw.

You can puree them or you can dice them.

In this case, I'm gonna do puree.

I'm gonna use raw tomatillos.

They're green, they are a little bit more on the bitter side

than a regular tomato.

It's very important that you remove the husk

out of the tomatillos.

You don't want to blend this.

This will be a very bitter flavor.

This is your classic taquera salsa, the mild one.

You can make these salsa without tomatillos.

If you can't find these, these are very hard to find.

So we'll do three tomatillos.

When it comes to jalapeno...

If you want this jalapeno to be extra spicy,

you have to kind of rub it,

kind of break veins,

so the jalapeno will be a little more spicy.

But if you don't, just cut it in half.

It's very hard to control the heat of any salsa, right?

If the recipe says three jalapenos, you do one,

you pure them, you taste it,

and then you find out if it needs another one.

So half, then we're gonna do one garlic.

Again, everything is raw.

[gentle guitar music]

Alright, and I'm gonna do a little bit of onion.

The reason why I'm using white onion

because to me it has a a little mild onion flavor.

And also when we puree this with the green stuff,

it looks also nicer.

Now, lime.

How do you know your lime is going to be juicy?

It's by the surface of the skin. It has to be smooth.

If you see a lot of like little holes and thicker skin

and more greener,

it's gonna be dry.

But this is smooth, slight green.

It has a little bit of yellow,

so this lime is going to be juicy.

And you can also press them really hard.

[knife thuds]

Now why did I'm adding lime to this?

'Cause I'm using avocado,

so I don't want my avocados to oxidize.

I don't want them to turn brown.

Cilantro adds a nice refresh flavor to this.

Now, I'm using the stems and the leaves.

The stems are closer to the soil to earth

so it's full of flavor.

The last and main ingredient of the salsa, it's the avocado.

The first thing that I'm looking for

is where is the avocado from?

I have really good experience from avocado

from Michoacan, Mexico.

So it has to be from Mexico.

The stem right here is to be more on the yellow green side.

The skin of the avocado has to be like a little rusty,

like this one,

but dark brown without being black.

This one looks perfect.

When you're making salsa fresca,

we want the avocado flavor to be 80% of the salsa.

And then we want the tomatillo, the onion,

the jalapeno, the cilantro, the lime,

to be part of the salsa.

We're gonna do a little bit of salt.

A little bit of water in the beginning.

And then if we think it needs more we'll add some more.

And we're gonna start slow.

[blender whirring]

It looks very buttery, creamy, fluffy, fresh.

Again, this salsa can be for anything.

[gentle guitar music]

[tacos crackling]

The level of spiciness, it's there, it's mild.

This is my mild salsa, so it's perfect.

[gentle guitar music] [graphics whooshing]

The salsa that we're about to make

is gonna be a medium heat salsa.

I call it salsa martajada

which is a semi-crunch, semi-blend salsa.

The way how I prepare my salsa martajada

is basically I char the vegetables.

It will add this char, smoky flavor to my salsa,

but also at the same time, keeping the vegetables semi-raw.

So it's like a really pleasant balance of salsa

when you're eating it.

So I wanna start with the onion.

The reason why I use red onion for this salsa

is because it has a stronger onion flavor.

I need a stronger flavor

because this salsa is gonna be spicier.

I'm gonna put more purples.

So when you put more spicy,

you have to use stronger ingredients

to balance up the spiciness, too.

I'm just gonna remove the stems out of this jalapenos

and do this to it.

Then the tomatoes, these are roma tomatoes.

It's the classic way

but you can use any other red tomatoes.

Okay, now the garlic.

I'm not smashing this because I want to char them.

I don't want this to burn.

I'm gonna do six cloves of garlic.

For this salsa I'm also gonna use some fresh cilantro.

I want this salsa to be really tasty and also colorful.

I'm also gonna use some of the stems.

And now the avocado.

We're gonna dice it because I want chunks of avocado

in my salsa.

Our [indistinct] is ready.

Now we're gonna char the vegetables

for our salsa martajada.

And the reason why I'm using cast iron pan

is because it holds heat for a longer time

and also it helps to char the vegetables

the way it should be.

And we're gonna start it

with the vegetables that takes longer to cook,

which is onion, Chef, onion.

The neutral oil is going to help the vegetables

get a better char and a little faster.

We're starting with the red onion and now the jalapeno

and the tomatoes.

This will probably take 10 to 15 minutes.

It all depends on how these vegetables are becoming.

We're gonna do a little more oil.

[vegetables sizzling]

So this is just turning, turning, turning.

So we're gonna throw some salt.

It's going to help to get the moist out of the vegetables.

It's gonna cook a little faster.

And now we're gonna throw our garlic.

This will probably cook faster than the other one.

So right now I'm gonna get my eye on the garlic.

I want the vegetables to be charred half way

without losing their shape

and without cooking all the way through.

So it looks like we're almost done.

The onions are ready.

So we're gonna remove the onions and the garlic.

Okay, this tomato, you see how sad it looks, that's ready.

This is telling me, Take me out of there.

The name of this salsa is martajada

that means that the tomatoes, the onions are crushed.

It's not puree and it's not mashed,

it's something in between.

We have our vegetables already cooled down.

Now what we're gonna do is gonna semi-puree them.

So we're gonna do one jalapeno.

Then we'll leave this two the last

just in case we need more heat.

'Cause once the heat is here and already mix it

there's no way how you can go back in time.

See? Save this two just in case.

Now we're gonna do a little bit of salt.

I typically use more [speaks in foreign language]

but I don't have that today.

But I have this food processor,

which is gonna do almost the same job.

We're gonna do.

[food processor whirring] One, two, three.

Oh more, a little more.

[food processor whirring]

Okay, that's perfect.

You're gonna taste this.

See if it needs more salt, more heat.

[gentle guitar music]

It's perfect.

Medium heat is there without overpowering it.

And then I taste the char.

It's kind of fresh at the same time but charred.

Now every salsa needs some kind of acidity.

I have the acidity from the tomatoes

but I didn't put no lemon.

So I'm gonna put red wine vinegar.

And this is gonna brine the flavor of all the vegetables.

Gonna have that kick.

And now we're gonna do a little bit of cilantro.

Now some avocado.

This salsa looks amazing.

It looks chunky without being too chunky.

And I can see the avocados.

I can see most of the ingredients.

Let's see if it taste as it looks.

[gentle guitar music]

Little spicy.

It's the medium salsa.

The vinegar helps the salsa come up together.

And texture wise, it's just on point.

It's crunch but not being too over crunch

and it's delicious.

Perfect salsa.

[gentle guitar music] [graphics whooshing]

This is the final salsa.

Salsa morita, the main pepper, it's the morita.

It's very similar to a chipotle.

It has that kind of smoke element, but also spicy.

But it's a medium spicy.

So this is when the chiles de arbol comes in

'cause this, it's spicy.

That we're only using two.

Little bit of spicy and flavor, heat.

And then also another kind of spicy, serranos.

Serranos has a pepper, spicy flavor.

And guajillo.

Guajillo for two things.

Texture and color.

It's gonna make it more red.

My first step, cut my vegetables, de-seed my guajillos

and then put on a tray and broil them.

The reason why I use red onion for this

is because like I say, it has a stronger flavor.

It will also help the balance of the heat.

Then the tomatoes.

Serrano.

Okay, so we have the garlic.

I'm gonna add a little bit of neutral oil and some salt.

The salt is gonna sweat them.

My vegetables are broiling.

In the meantime, I'm gonna work on my dried chilies.

So I wanna start with the guajillos.

When I remove the stem.

The reason why I'm removing the seeds,

because the seeds of the guajillos,

since it's a long pepper,

it has bigger seeds and it has a lot of seed.

We're gonna go low heat, medium heat, something in between.

You're dealing with dry peppers, right?

This is like paper

'cause it's dry, so you can burn it really easy.

And what happens when you burn it, they taste bitter.

So this texture and color.

Morita is the main chili.

It adds smokiness flavor and spiciness.

Spiciness of this is kind of a little of sweet,

for some reason because this is being dried,

so it's nice and sweet.

And now for spiciness, chiles de arbol.

So I'm going to [indistinct] these peppers

'cause I want the flavors to bloom.

If you burn it, they will be bitter.

So that's why you start with low heat.

So basically I wanna make sure everybody gets the same heat.

This is a very quick process.

Like you see here how easy, was almost burned.

Even the color, look, the color is like waking up.

This is ready, this is ready.

This oil right here, I'm not gonna just toss it.

I'm gonna save it because it has a chili oil flavor.

Our vegetables are broiler,

our peppers, our blister.

Alright, so I wanna start with the tomatoes.

[gentle upbeat music]

Again, the ingredients are very similar on all the salsas

but this is a little more complex

because we're cooking it twice.

We broiled them and then we're gonna simmer it.

I'm gonna put all the serranos here

because this salsa is the spicy one.

I'm gonna take the chili oil that was there.

I don't like to waste.

And then I'm gonna do all the chilies.

A little bit of white vinegar.

I want the salsa to last longer

and also I want the vinegar to bring the flavors

out of this even better.

A little bit of water.

The water is gonna help to blend all this together.

A little bit of salt, even though I already put.

Now we're going to puree this.

[blender whirring]

That's it. Let's try it.

Aye yai yai.

I feel like it's gonna be too spicy.

[gentle upbeat music]

[Saul speaks in foreign language]

The consistency is perfect.

Very similar to a mole.

The spiciness, it's right on point, almost little too spicy.

But here's the thing with this salsa,

when you let it sit overnight

and you eat it the next day,

for some reason the heat level goes lower.

So what I'm gonna do right now,

I'm going to [speaks in foreign language] the salsa.

I'm gonna re-fry the salsa

because this salsa has to be complex.

And by cooking it on a medium heat

it will bring those flavors even stronger and deeper.

We're gonna do a little bit of oil.

Charred it, heat off.

You see that little smoke?

That's gonna add some smokiness.

This process is added another level of flavor.

Now that our salsa it's simmering,

we're gonna do this for 15 minutes

and then it's going to be ready.

It's been 15 minutes.

Our salsa is looking pretty good.

The color already changed, it's darker.

So that means it's gonna have a lot of flavor.

The texture, it's right on point.

It's smooth without it being too dry.

It will hold perfectly on a taco, on a tostada.

I'm gonna let this cool down and then I'm gonna taste it.

[taco crackling]

Just the complexity is so different for the other salsas.

This salsa has the perfect consistency,

the perfect level of spiciness for salsa morita.

The color and the texture, it's just, we nailed it.

Alright, we made it.

I just show you how to make three different kind of salsas.

And if you learn how to make these salsas

with every single different technique,

you can become a salsa maestro or maestra.

When I see these salsas,

it reminds me of when you go a taco stand

or you go to a Mexican restaurant.

Each salsa plays a different reason into your taco.

[gentle upbeat music]

Mm.