Sauces and Salsas Recipes

Salsas

Tomato Salsa (Pico de Gallo)

Salsa fresco, or pico de gallo appears on almost every Mexican and Tex-Mex table. You can use this salsa with chips, grilled meat, fish, eggs, vegetables and over cheese spreads. This recipe makes about 2 cups. You can also swap out almost any kind of fruit for the tomatoes to make a fruit salsa. Mango is a favorite.

Ingredients

2 large, ripe, fresh tomatoes, cored and chopped
1/2 large white onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 fresh minced jalepeno or habanero chile
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Steps

1. Combine everything but the salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Let sit for 15 minutes to allow the flavors to develop, but serve within 2 hours or preparation.

Sauces

Basic Tomato Sauce

Serve over pasta or seafood.

Click to set custom HTML

Ingredients

Fresh tomatos, peeled and chopped (about 9 ounces)
Sugar
2 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons olive oil
Fresh basil leaves, torn
Salt

Steps

Put the tomatoes in a sauce pan.
Add the sugar, garlic and a pinch of salt.
Cover and cook over a vey low heat for about 30 minutes without stirring.
Mash the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.
Remove the pan from heat and let cool.
Stir in the olive oil and basil.

Quick Cook Tomato Sauce

A good alternative when in a hurry, this sauce can be produced in about 20 minutes. Serve over pasta.

Ingredients

6 Roma or plum tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 garlic cloves, diced
Salt
4 tablespoons olive oil
Fresh parsley sprig

Steps

1. Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water for a few seconds, peel, seed, dice and place into a non-reactive (enamel or stainless steel) pan.
2. Add the olive oil, garlic, parsley and salt.
3. Cook uncovered on medium heat for 10 minutes without stirring.
4. Remove from the heat, remove garlic and parsley.

* For thicker sauce, cook 4 minutes more.

"Pink" Italian Tomato Sauce

Serve over pasta, scrambled eggs or in a a baguette as a sandwich.

Ingredients

About 18 ounces or tomatoes, chopped
1 medium onion
3 tablespoons olive oil or butter
4 oz ricotta cheese
1/4 whole milk
8 oz Italian or other spicy sausage cooked and chopped
Chopped basil or parsley for garnish

Steps

1. Follow steps 1-4 for the basic tomato sauce above
2. Mix in the ricotta and whole milk
3. Toss in the chopped sausage and genly mix together

Basic "Mexican" Tomato Sauce

This sauce can be used over meat, in tacos and over eggs. Try it with a fried corn tortilla, with a sunny side up egg, smothered with the sauce and a cubed white cheese such as vinegar cheese and cilantro as garnish.

Ingredients

Tomatoes (about 10 ounces)
1/2 medium onion, diced
Fresh hot green chiles to taste ( 2 serrano or 1 jalapeno), stemmed, seeded and minced
2/3 cup of poultry broth
1 tsp lime juice
1 Tbsp bacon drippings or fat rendered from chorizo
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
Epazote (optional)
Salt (optional)

Steps

1. Place onion, chiles, broth, lime juice, lard or fat in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Cover and cook 3 minutes.
3. Cover and cook until the liquid has evaporated and the vegetables begin to fry.
4. While the vegetables are cooking, puree the tomato and garlic in a blender. At the point of the vegetables frying, add the mixture to the saucepan, add the optional epazote and cook until the liquid reduces.
5. Correct seasoning with salt as desired.

Favorite Tomato Pizza Sauce

A great accompaniment for grilled pizzas.

Ingredients

8 large chopped tomatoes
2 Tbsps olive oil
2 Tbsps garlic
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp red chile glakes
1 tsp each kosher salt and black pepper
1 Tbsp chopped fresh oregano

Steps

Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan
Add the garlic and cook, stirring until fragrant
Stir in the tomatoes, sugar red chile flakes, salt and pepper
Bring the mixture to a boil and then reduce the heat to low to simmer and cover, stirring often until very thick.
When done, stir in the oregano.

Salsa Verde (Quick Cooked Green Tomatillo Sauce)

Tomatillos are a garden favorite. They are actually a berry, but they get their name from their resemblance to their distant cousin, the tomato.

It's not unusual for the ones you grow in your garden to be about the size of a large walnut, while the ones you see in the grocery stores are more the size of a small to medium tomato.

Use this sauce as a condiment, over chicken, enchiladas, eggs, or simmer it with tortillas to make chilaquiles.

If you prefer milder flavored foods, simply reduce the number of chiles.

Tomatillos in the garden

Ingredients

1 pound fresh tomatillos, husks removed
3 serranos or 2 jalepenos (amount can be adjusted for heat preference)
5 or 6 sprigs of corriander, roughly chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 large clove of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon lard or vegetable oil
2 cups of any poultry or meat broth, depending on how you intend to use the sauce)

Steps

1. Fill a sauce pan with enough water to cover the tomatillos and chiles; boil until tender and drain.
2. In a blender, combine the tomatillos and chiles, corriander, onion and garlic. Process until smooth, but there is still some texture.
3. Heat the lard of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, pour the mixture in and stir contantly until the mixture thickens and darkens a bit. Add the broth, reduce the heat and allow the mixture to simmer until thick.

Serve as suggested above.

Basic Bechamel Sauce

This base sauce can be easily enahnced to make multiple different flavors. This one works well over gratins, omelets, souffles, vegetables, pasta and stuffings. For a richer bechamel, replace half the milk with the same amount of heavy cream, for a lighter sauce, add half milk and half water. You can replace the nutmeg with mustard and serve over fish, poultry or broiled meat. Replace the nutmeg with mushrooms and add 3 tablespoons of heavy cream for a Mushroom Bechamel and serve over short pasta, veal, scallops or poached eggs. serves 4.

Ingredients

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups of milk
Pinch of freshly grated nutmet (optional)
Pepper

Steps

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour.
2. Pour in all the milk, whisking constantly until ti starts to boil.
3. Season with salt, lower the heat, cover and simmer gently sitrring occastionally for at least 20 minutes.
4. Remove the pna from the heat and season with pepper and nutmeg.
If the sauce is too thick, add a little more milk. If it's too runny, mix a pat of butter mixed with an equal amount of flour and return the pan to the heat till thickened.

Hollandaise Sauce

A key to a good sauce that doesn't break is the quality of your saucepan. A heavy weight saucepan that is made of copper or is a copper inlay is a good choice. If you don't have a copper pot, but sure to use the heaviest pot you own that will heat at an even speed to help prevent the eggs from breaking. If the eggs do begin to curdle, immediately remove them from the heat and continue to whisk for a minute before returning the pan to the stove. This sauce does not keep particularly well, so use immediately or keep warm for 15 to 30 minutes over very low heat, whisking occasionally.

Ingredients

3 egg yolks (preferably Bantam eggs)
2 tablespoons water
6 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt

Steps

1. Put the egg yolks, water and a pinch of salt in the saucepan over very low heat. Cook and whisk constantly, until light, foamy, and slightly thickened, approximately 3-5 minutes.
2. Remove the pan for the heat and stir in the butter one tablespoon at a time.
3. Return to the heat and continue to whisk until the mixture is thick and bright yellow.
4. Add lemon juice, then taste, adjust the seasoning and add any additional desired spices.