Restaurant-Style Chipotle Salsa Recipe

Name: Restaurant-Style Chipotle Salsa
Yield: 0 Approximately 20 ounces of salsa
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes (drained); 1 small onion (roughly chopped); 1 clove garlic (roughly chopped); 1/2 cup cilantro (mostly leaves, discard thick stems, but thin stems are ok); 1-2 chipotle peppers (from can); 2 tablespoons lime juice; 1/2 teaspoon salt; 1/4 teaspoon pepper

by brandie 128 Comments

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This Restaurant-Style Chipotle Salsa recipe couldn’t be easier! Get those tortilla chips ready because you’ll be dipping & scooping in no time!

I swear that my family can go through a gallon of salsa in a month. We usually have one or two jarred varieties in our refrigerator at any given time, but homemade salsa is a must in our house when we have mexican food, or when we have get-togethers or parties. Two of our four kids will literally beg me to make homemade salsa and I swear they are as excited about my salsa as they are about cake for dessert (ok, maybe that’s stretching it. I mean they do love it, but I’m sure if they had a choice of cake or salsa, they are going with the cake and licking their plates).

David devours this salsa too and we both gave it the name “restaurant-style” because it’s a similar consistency to many of our favorite Mexican restaurants. While this recipe is with chipotle peppers (another David favorite), I often make this same recipe, but substitute the chipotle peppers with a 1/2 or whole fresh jalapeno that has had the stem removed.

The good thing about this salsa is it is SO easy and you can literally blend up a batch in about 5 minutes or less. If you don’t like chopping vegetables, or messing with fresh jalapenos, you’ll like this one too as there is minimal chopping and you won’t accidentally squirt jalapeno juice into your eye.

My Restaurant-Style Chipotle Salsa starts with a can of whole peeled tomatoes. I personally think fire-roasted is the way to go here, but you can use any brand or style that you prefer. And, while I prefer fire-roasted, I didn’t use them for this batch.

The tomatoes go into the food processor and then you’ll add all the other ingredients: onion (roughly chopped, nothing fancy needed); some cilantro (I discard as much of the thick stems as possible), garlic clove, lime juice, salt, and pepper. And, of course, you’ll add the star of the show: the chipotle pepper. Buy a can and scoop out a good size one and throw it in there too. I usually use two of them, but I recommend adding one and then tasting the salsa before adding chipotle pepper #2 or even #3.

Then you blend it up! I make this in my food processor, so I mostly just hit the pulse button a bunch of times until it’s the consistency that I like.

That is it…give it a taste and, if necessary, adjust your seasonings. This salsa is best if you refrigerate it for at least an hour or more, but do we do that? Hardly ever. Most of the time it’s enjoyed right away.