Salsa roja is the perfect Mexican salsa for tortillas and tacos. Put a bowl of nachos next to it, and you’ll see the red sauce disappear in no time. So make sure you make extra.
Salsa roja is made with roasted tomatoes. What you add after that is entirely up to you. Our salsa roja includes onion, jalapeño and garlic. That’s the basics. Try this recipe first, and then you can experiment with different peppers.
The trick to a good salsa roja is to cook the sauce so that the excess moisture can evaporate a bit. After everything has been in the blender, you have a relatively thin, slightly greener sauce. Cooking the sauce a little more will thicken it, and then it will get its red colour.
This is our salsa roja. If you will make this sauce, let us know in the comments below. Or better! Take a photo and post it on Instagram. Tag @bbq.heroes so we can see what you made.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 8 Roma tomatoes
- 2 jalapeno peppers
- 1 white onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- A bunch of flat parsley
- Juice of half a lemon
- Salt to taste
- 1 tbsp paprika powder
Instructions
- Cut the onion into quarters. Heat a pan until it is piping hot, and add the olive oil with the tomatoes, peppers and onion.
- Grill everything until you see some black spots, and then remove everything from the pan.
- Remove the seeds and ribs from the jalapeño peppers or leave them on if you like the sauce a little hotter.
- Toss everything in a blender with garlic, parsley and lime juice. Press the button until you are left with a chunky salsa.
- Now everything can go back in the pan with a tablespoon of paprika. Stir-fry the salsa until it has thickened slightly.
- The sauce can be kept refrigerated for two weeks.
