Salsa Rojo – basic red sauce

We enjoy food from a variety of cultures, Indian, Asian, Italian, German, and Mexican. It’s always nice to make foods from scratch and I like this basic red sauce with tamales and enchiladas. I talked about cooking up meats for use in Mexican dishes in this post. I may do a post on making tamales at some point, but I will have to make them when Walt is home to help with pictures. Tamales are a three-handed operation at the best of times.

Salsa rojo is actually collection of sauces, some cooked (salsa cocida), some roasted (salsa asada) and some served raw (salsa cruda). The ingredients are then ground or blended to make a smoother sauce than what we would consider “salsa.” This recipe is for a cooked sauce. It is the result of some experimentation with several different recipes.

Salsa Rojo

Ingredients

• 5 Ancho chiles –
• Hot water
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 8 ounces tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano or 3 tablespoons fresh oregano
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds or 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper or to taste
• 1 teaspoon salt or to taste

Soak the anchos in the water for 30 to 45 minutes. When they are soft, remove the seeds, stems, and outer membranes.

Strain the liquid and reserve.

Saute the onion and garlic in the oil in a large pan until it is soft and lightly brown. Stir in the anchos, 2 cups of the reserved liquid, the tomato sauce and the seasonings. Bring to a boil, reduce to medium heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Allow to cool, then blend about a cup at a time of the sauce until it is smooth. Make sure the lid is tight on the blender as this sauce is very liquid and spatters easily.

The sauce can be refrigerated for about ten days. It can be frozen for about 3 months or it can be boiling-water canned like other tomato based products (20 to 25 minutes).

Notes

I usually make a double batch of this sauce. The basic recipe makes about 2 1/2 cups. Since it cans and freezes well, I like to make a bigger batch and package in about 1 cup containers. Each container is enough for most dinners.

You can add more seasoning to this if you like a spicier sauce. More anchos will deepen the flavor. Some cayenne or chipotle powder will add layers to the sauce. Chile powder adds heat.

Since anchos are dried peppers, they vary in size. I like to use 5 about 6-7 inches long for a single batch of this sauce. If the peppers are smaller, you want to use more. Anchos are dried poblanos,

Digging deeper

There’s some really interesting information about using ground versus whole spices in this post. Herbs are a different matter.