Fresh Salsa is the Best Salsa!

Fresh Salsa Is The Best Salsa !

Lisa’s Point of View loves to share my passion for fresh salsa. There are so many ways to get creative with fresh salsa and Pico de Gallo to incorporate into your meals and snacks. The great aspect for fresh salsa is it is low in calories, carbohydrates and fats and is a healthier alternative to other condiments which can have added sugar and can be high in sodium.

Fresh salsa (not including fruit salsas) shelf life in the refrigerator after it is made is approximately 5-7 days. Fruit salsas have a shorter shelf life in the refrigerator. I encourage people to consume the fresh salsa within the first few days for the freshest of flavors.  What you will notice is the ingredients starting to break down in texture, color and flavor the longer it is in the refrigerator. Also, the pH level can and will change which can be a food safety concern past the safe shelf life refrigerated. A great alternative (for non-fruit based salsa) is to freeze the fresh salsa in plastic freezer bags.  You can freeze the salsa for up to 30 days then thaw in the refrigerator. It will have more of a liquid texture yet the delicious flavor remains. I use it for marinades over baked chicken, roast, beef tips, turkey, meat loaf. I use it in pasta dishes. I blend it with cooked rice and orzo. It also makes for a great dressing over salad. You can mix it in with your hamburger patties before putting on the grill. It also tastes delicious for making sloppy joes, chili, queso, etc.

I prefer using Roma or on the vine tomatoes especially for the Pico de Gallo. The bigger Beefeater/sandwich style tomatoes do not hold their texture when chopping. Roma tomatoes give the best combinations of needed flavor for a salsa (not too sweet or tart). The wintertime makes it difficult to find tomatoes that taste great. Another alternative it to get organic canned diced tomatoes. Make sure to look at the ingredients to ensure no additional ingredients are added.

In my fresh salsa, I use both white onions and red onions. If you are not a fan of onions, you can substitute with chopped sweet red, yellow and orange bell peppers for the needed texture. If you like both, then you can have both onions and sweet bell peppers in your fresh salsa for an incredible mixture of textures and flavors. I add a couple cloves of FRESH minced garlic I chop/mince myself. I am not fond of buying the jar of minced garlic. There are great kitchen tools that make mincing easy. Based on who I am making the salsa for determines what type of hot peppers I use (if any). Peppers can add a dynamic flavor and heat to the salsas

Fresh salsa allows you to experiment with different ingredients to suit your desired flavors. Some common ingredients in fresh salsa are tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, sweet bell peppers, salt, pepper, green chilies, diced jalapenos or other hot peppers, chopped green onions, etc. You will see many salsas include corn or beans. Fresh Pico de Gallo”s are getting creative adding cucumbers, corn, etc. Fresh fruit salsas & fruit Pico de Gallos are becoming the rage including mango, peach, pineapple, strawberry, blueberry, apple, etc. The possibilities are endless! The one important thing to remember is to add either fresh lime juice or lemon juice as a natural preservative.

Many ask why I do not bottle my salsa for a longer shelf life. First and foremost, you have to add some type of preservative to extend the shelf life in the canning process. Most salsas that are bottled add vinegar or bottled lemon juice. Although they say it does not change the taste, to me the “heating” process of canning salsa, does change the flavor of tomatoes. When you can/bottle fresh salsa, per USDA guidelines, you must have your proportions of ingredients correct to ensure there is a balance of acidic ingredients to non-acidic along with the correct pH level achieved. You must add the acid to these salsas processed in a boiling water canner because the natural acidity of the mixture without it may not be high enough and can be a food safety issue. Many bottled salsas will add sugar to offset the tartness of the vinegar in the canning process.

Some interesting history on salsa from TheNibble.com: “The chile has been domesticated since about 5200 B.C.E., and tomatoes by 3000 B.C.E. both in Central America. The two were combined into a condiment, which the Conquistadors named “salsa,” or sauce. Salsa is the Spanish word for sauce, but the food predates the Spaniards by many centuries. Tomato is the base of salsa: The wild tomato is indigenous to Ecuador and Peru, but the Aztecs and other Central American nations were the first to domesticate it.
In 1529, Bernardino de Sahagún arrives and begins to document Aztec culture, which includes foods (and salsa).
In 1807, the first bottled hot sauces, made with cayenne chiles, appear in Massachusetts.
In 1941, Henry Tanklage forms La Victoria Sales Company to market a new La Victoria salsa line.”

Pinterest and Google are great sources of recipe ideas for fresh salsa. I highly recommend to get your produce when you can from a local farmers markets as that way you can ask the farmers if they grew the produce themselves and if any pesticides were used. In grocery stores there are different “grades” of produce. Ask your grocery store produce manager where the produce comes from. They can be a great resource of information. For fruit salsas, I highly recommend using peach and strawberries “in season” only when you can go to local orchards to pick them yourself or get from local farmers markets.

You can check out my other blog posts of creative ways to incorporate fresh salsa into your meals and appetizers. I give thanks to many of my friends who over the years have shared the recipe ideas on how they used my fresh salsa in their meals & appetizers. Fresh Salsa is the Best Salsa! I hope you enjoy some of the ideas on Lisa’s Salsa Blog. The professional photos of my salsa courtesy of Tammy Venezia Photography 2016.