One of our least favorite parts of today’s modern food system is the amount of food waste we create each year. In an attempt to lessen the tonnage of food that gets thrown away, we try to utilize every last edible parcel that comes out of our garden. This year, our tomatoes and peppers were late bloomers, which left many unripe veggies on the vine. Rather than composting or wasting them, we decided to try to utilize them in today’s recipe: an easy, extremely flavorful salsa!
Traditional salsa recipes are simple, with minimal ingredients that blend perfectly together to create a delicious balance of flavor and spice. With this recipe, we tried to stick to that type of whole ingredient simplicity! Though they are not fully ripe, green tomatoes are still very flavorful. This combined with a bit of heat from our red chili peppers and the oven created an absolute explosion of flavor that we will be putting on just about everything!
The Recipe
*Note! The tomatoes used in this recipe were UNRIPE tomatoes that were left on the vine at the end of this season’s harvest. If you have a bundle of beautiful ripe tomatoes or tomatillos, those will work great as well!
- ½ a large white onion, roughly diced
- 3 cloves of garlic
- ½ ounce of cilantro (about 7-10 small sprigs)
- Juice from 1 lime
- 1 tsp of salt
- ~2 cups of green tomatoes
- 4 small red chili peppers
Load tomatoes and chili peppers onto a baking sheet and drizzle very lightly with olive oil. Place baking sheet under the broiler until tomatoes and peppers are blistered and are starting to blacken (5-10 minutes).
While you wait for the tomatoes and peppers, blend together the cilantro, onion, lime juice, salt and garlic in a food processor until relatively smooth. Once tomatoes and peppers are ready, CAREFULLY add them to the food processor and blend until smooth. Add any salt or lime to taste, crack open your favorite chips, and enjoy!
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