Our personal recipe for quick and easy tomato salsa is so addictive, you'll want to double up and make two batches — that's how fast it disappears. We'll show you how to make a true restaurant-style salsa, and let you in on a few secret ingredients that really enhance the natural flavor of tomatoes. Watch the video and keep reading to see the classic salsa recipe.
With Cinco de Mayo on the horizon, you'll need a lot of salsa to celebrate. Instead of reaching for bottles in the chips aisle, make this chipotle-tomatillo salsa, which will put any of the jarred stuff to shame. If you've never attempted homemade salsa, let me let you in on a little secret. I've never been able to make a decent homemade salsa before I met Michelle Bernstein, a Miami chef, restaurateur, and expert in Latino cuisine. We met at Lean Cuisine's Culinary Roundtable, where Michelle, a member of the conference, taught a group of us food writers how to prepare various salsas from different regions of South America. This is a riff on her traditional Mexican salsa.
Afraid of tomatillos? Don't be! They have a flavor like underripe tomatoes, and once you've tried them in this salsa, you'll want to experiment with them in other Mexican sauces, soups, and dishes.
The tomatillos, onions, and garlic take a trip to the broiler to become charred and softened. This adds a smoky, roasted flavor to the salsa.
If you're wondering how the salsa turns out red, it's due to the chipotle peppers in adobo. Pulse the charred vegetables, chipotles in adobo, and agave nectar (which neutralizes the spiciness, according to Michelle) together in a food processor until a smooth salsa forms. One bite and you'll be hooked on this salsa forever. It has the amazing ability to hit all the flavor profiles at once: sweet from the agave, sour from the tomatillos, spicy from the chipotle, and salty from the adobo sauce.
A couple of weeks ago, I made a chili con queso from the blogger the Pioneer Woman. While she served her variation as a warm dip, I decided to experiment with the cheese as a nachos appetizer. I substituted chicken habañero sausages for the Jimmy Dean.
The nachos were decadent and spicy, like a gourmet version of classic ballpark nachos.
Perfect for watching a game (or movie), these nachos are crowd pleasing and delicious. They are exactly what nachos should be: crunchy, melty, pure scrumptiousness. To learn how I made them, read more
When it comes to Mexican cuisine, there is nothing quite as essential as guacamole. In its most basic form, the creamy dip consists of perfectly ripe mashed avocado seasoned with salt. While there are hundreds of recipes, it's nice to have a simple one to start with. Once you've mastered the technique, it's easy to get creative with lots of variations. You can experiment with different types of onion, substitute lemon or orange juice for the lime juice, and change the texture by blitzing in a food processor. Since Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner, it's a great time to share my favorite guacamole recipe. To check it out and see more suggestions on how to jazz it up, keep reading.
Chances are, now that it's picnic season, that you're in need of a back-pocket appetizer that doesn't take too much effort but actually looks like you tried. That's where this speedy antipasto comes in. It stars just three ingredients: piquant-sweet peppadew peppers, salami, and provolone cheese. Find out how to pull together this recipe-free dish — no cooking required.
A recent food fixation in the form of a simple tartine, composed of hearty whole-wheat toast slathered with creamy hummus, sun-dried tomatoes, and fresh pea shoots, inspired today's creation. This fast and easy option saw me through breakfasts, snack hours, and lunches aplenty but wasn't exactly the sort of food one would serve to company. How, I mused, could I transform this satisfying snack into an elegant appetizer?
A simple swap of a seeded baguette for sandwich bread makes these diminutive bites visually enticing, bite-size, and party-friendly. Chances are, I won't abandon this perfect storm of creamy, crisp, and candy-sweet sun-dried tomatoes in its large-scale iteration any time soon, but I will embrace its entertaining-friendly turn in addition. Get the easy recipe, and follow suit.
I'm a purist — I don't like to gunk up my guacamole with a bunch of random ingredients. So here's a supersimple version that is sure to surprise you with its deliciousness. Double it, if you want.
Happy National Cheese Ball Day! We were thrilled to learn that there's a day to celebrate the cheese ball, because we're always looking for an excuse to make one.
If you've never had a cheese ball, allow me to introduce you to your new favorite appetizer: its base is cream cheese, and it's typically whipped up with various aromatic herbs, other cheeses, and sometimes meat, like bacon. Then it's patted into a ball shape and rolled around in various coatings like pecans, pepper, dried fruit, or chocolate chips. Serve it with crackers, pretzels, fresh fruit, or cookies like Nilla Wafers (there are also sweet varieties out there). While cheese balls are typically reserved for party occasions, we're thinking there's no reason on earth not to make and enjoy a cheese ball to ourselves on this fine holiday.
The next time you get a craving for gooey chorizo-filled queso dip, there's only one thing to do: make this amazing cheese dip! Sure, it has nothing to do with seasonal eating, but that's OK. Sometimes it's nice to break the rules and just enjoy a dip because it tastes really good.
A combination of queso fresco, white cheddar, mozzarella, and goat cheese, this queso is addictive and delicious. To make it vegetarian, simply omit the chorizo. To check out this recipe — I'm definitely making it again! — keep reading.
Growing up, steamed artichokes with lemon-pepper butter were a rare treat, and my sisters and I begged my mom to make it every time we'd see stacks of the thorny buds at the supermarket. Beyond the fun of scraping the flesh off each artichoke petal, you really can't go wrong with dousing anything in melted butter.
My mom's version of lemon-pepper butter is a little less involved than this recipe: she would set us up with the shaker of Lawry's Lemon Pepper Seasoning (available in the spice section) and a bowl of melted butter, and we would happily shake and spice the butter to our hearts' content.
Now that I'm older, I'll pass on the lemon pepper seasoning in favor of zesting and juicing a fresh lemon to add citric tang to the peppered butter, but I made sure to maintain the integrity of my food memories. When steamed sufficiently, artichokes become so sweet and creamy, it's almost like dipping butter in, well, more butter. Despite being revered as a special-occasion food, this recipe really couldn't be easier. Just remember: artichokes take about 45 minutes to steam, so plan accordingly.
If you have any leftover lemon-pepper butter, you must not have dipped each petal generously enough! Whatever you do, don't you dare toss it. Use the lemon-pepper butter when baking chicken or melt it over mashed potatoes. Keep reading for the simple artichoke recipe.
