Best Restaurant Style Salsa Recipe

This is the best restaurant style salsa recipe, and I’ve been making it blissfully for almost a decade! What makes this the best restaurant style salsa recipe? Spoiler alert: it comes from one of my favorite Mexican restaurants (but I’ll never say which)! It blends fresh garlic, cilantro, chiles, onions, and tomatoes with canned tomatoes for the perfect blend of fresh and traditional restaurant style salsa. So good!

I have a super special, super weird post for you all today: an update of my very first post ever. This is the best restaurant style salsa recipe, and, as evidenced by this EIGHT YEAR OLD BLOG POST (I know), I’ve been making it blissfully for years.

I wrote this post back when I made the best restaurant style salsa recipe to detract from my looming almost-fat: law school. I started this blog, originally called Legally Eating, as a way to hoard my creativity whilst heading full-throttle into a dry, immersive legal experience. Suffice it to say, I realized that playing on the Internet and making food was my actual dream, and the law school thing didn’t last too terribly long.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯   

Nothing about the recipe has changed, and it’s even more tried and true than ever. The story of how I got it is still fantastic, even though recipezaar.com became food.com many, many years ago (I’m old).

The Original Post

Yesterday’s culinary adventure… was more of a culinary autopilot.

I’ve been making this salsa for at least two years now, but it’s become something of a favorite–nay, necessity, in my.. surroundings.

Back at college, my friends always willingly hung out at my house, knowing that in return for such convenience, I’d have them stocked on the stuff.

In Paris, I chopped everything by hand into tiny, tiny pieces, and as a going-away present, I gave the girl who drank the salsa from a wine glass… like it was, well.. wine, the recipe. Back at my parents’ house, it is literally one of my duties to keep at least half a gallon around at all times. Whatever would we do if some family dropped by and there were no salsa to feed them? Oh, quel horror!

But hey, I can’t blame them. Check out the story of how I even got the recipe:

The Story

So, I have my profile up on recipezaar.com, of course, and at the bottom of my page, it said my ultimate goal was to create a copycat recipe of this particular restaurant’s salsa.. My absolute favorite food in the world.

Well, apparently a fellow student at my university had randomly made one of my recipes, liked it, checked out my profile, and, it being Christmas and all, decided to get the recipe for me. It took a little tugging at the heartstrings of the woman who runs the restaurant, but lo and behold, it came my way. What can I say? It’s utterly delicious.

The thing about this salsa is that it combines fresh ingredients with cooked ingredients, unlike most salsas which either all meld together in a big pot, or are all raw, like a pico de gallo. Combining the two gives it a depth that’s to die for.

That, my friends, is what makes it the best restaurant style salsa recipe! It’s not a chunky salsa, but chunky salsas just remind me of the crappy El Paso I shelled out 5€ for in Paris, out of utter desperation. You should see me try to go longer than a few days without Mexican food..

It ain’t pretty.

Hey – you’ve made it this far, so now we’re basically best friends! If you make this recipe, I’d love for you to give it a quick review & star rating ★ below. Make sure you follow me on Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and Facebook, too!

5 from 1 vote

Best Restaurant Style Salsa Recipe

Prep:10 minutes minutes

Cook:0 minutes minutes

Total:10 minutes minutes

A blend of fresh garlic, cilantro, chiles, onions, and tomatoes for a fresh and traditional restaurant style salsa. So good!

• Pin

Print Save Saved! Click Here to Remove Ads

4 servings

Ingredients

• ▢ 4 cloves garlic
• ▢ 1-3 whole serrano chili peppers stems removed, peppers quartered; see Notes for heat levels
• ▢ ½ bunch cilantro approximately ¾ cup loose cilantro leaves
• ▢ ½ of one yellow onion or white onion, sliced into 1-inch pieces
• ▢ ¾ pound Roma tomatoes cut into 1-inch pieces
• ▢ 3 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes drained; 42 ounces diced tomatoes total, drained
• ▢ 2 teaspoons salt more or less to taste

Equipment

• Food processor
• serving bowl or airtight container

Instructions 

• Add garlic, serrano chili peppers, and cilantro to food processor bowl. Pulse until ingredients are minced and well combined.
• Add onions to food processor and pulse again until onions are finely chopped and mixture is fairly smooth.
• Add roma tomatoes and pulse until no large chunks of tomato remain.
• Add drained cans of diced tomatoes and pulse until desired salsa consistency is achieved.
• Transfer salsa to serving bowl or airtight container. Taste salsa and season with salt as desired. Serve immediately or seal container and refrigerate salsa until ready to serve.

Notes

• Serrano Peppers: For a mild salsa, use 1 serrano chile with the seeds removed. For a medium salsa, use 1 serrano chile, including seeds. For a hot salsa, use 2 serrano chiles, including seeds. For fiery salsa, use 3 serrano peppers, including seeds.
• Consistency: This is not intended to be a chunky salsa. Ideally the end consistency should be fairly smooth.
• Leftovers: Refrigerate salsa in an airtight container. Salsa will keep approximately 2 to 3 weeks if stored properly.

Nutrition Information

Serving: 1serving, Calories: 82kcal, Carbohydrates: 19g, Protein: 4g, Fat: 1g, Saturated Fat: 0.1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.2g, Monounsaturated Fat: 0.1g, Sodium: 1200mg, Potassium: 832mg, Fiber: 5g, Sugar: 11g, Vitamin A: 1267IU, Vitamin C: 43mg, Calcium: 115mg, Iron: 3mg, Net Carbs: 14g

Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.

 

Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.

 

To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.

© Author: Cheryl Malik