Super Bowl Salsa Bar

Bring the heat to your game-day party with salsa recipes from Siete Family Foods.

Story and photos by Aida Garza of Siete Family Foods

The Super Bowl is coming up, and we are excited to watch the game. But let’s be honest, the day also acts as a national tribute to overdeveloped commercials and experimental snack foods. There’s only one day a year when buffalo-chicken dip is appropriate dinner fare and building a fortress out of snack foods is considered a worthy creative endeavor. Your imagination and caloric threshold are the limit.

To honor this festive element of the game, we have assembled a bar of five radically different salsas: árbol, guacatillo, quemada, Texas Green and verde.

This first fiery salsa takes advantage of the hot chile de árbol. Its robust flavor and texture make it perfect for chips, tacos and more.

Chile de Árbol

Ingredients

5 to 15 chiles de árbol (depending on the desired heat level)

1 tablespoon avocado oil

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

1 pound roma tomatoes

3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

1 1/2 cups water

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Preheat the broiler.
2. Place the tomatoes on a baking sheet and cook them until their charred (approximately 10 minutes).
3. Toast the chiles in a dry skillet for five minutes. Once toasted, set them aside.
4. Remove the tomatoes from the oven and place them in a large bowl. Let them cool, then slip off the skins and remove the core and the middle of the fruit.
5. Set the heat to medium and coat a saucepan or deep skillet with avocado oil. Saute the onions and garlic until translucent.
6. Add the tomatoes, chiles and water. Simmer for 10 to 12 minutes.
7. Take the mixture off the burner, let it cool, blend and serve.

If you’re not from the Southwest, you may not be familiar with guacatillo. This salsa is a relative of guacamole, but uses the tangy flavor of the tomatillo to turn the chunky, thick texture of guacamole into a slightly thinner, creamier and more flavorful alternative. If guacamole is Paul McCartney’s Super Bowl halftime show, guacatillo is Prince’s (RIP) less popular, more experimental but just as––if not more––satisfying.

Guacatillo

Ingredients

3 to 4 medium-sized, medium-ripe avocados

6 tomatillos, husked and cleaned

1 jalapeño, stemmed

1 bunch cilantro leaves

1 clove garlic

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Blend and enjoy.

Quemada is the house salsa at Siete Family Foods, the Austin-based maker of grain-free tortillas and chips. It has a rich texture and light kick that makes it perfect for snacking. The charring on the base fruits and vegetables gives it a nice depth that eludes many salsas.

Quemada

Ingredients

4 large tomatoes, halved

1 medium onion, quartered

6 garlic cloves, peeled

2 to 4 jalapeños

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1 lime, juiced

Directions

1. Preheat a skillet to medium-high heat.
2. Place the tomatoes (skin side down), onions, jalapeños and garlic on the skillet and dry-roast them for 10 minutes or until they’re charred.
3. Transfer the tomatoes, onions, jalapeños and garlic to a blender or food processor.
4. Add the salt, cumin and lime, and blend to desired consistency.
5. For a richer color, return the salsa to the skillet and simmer for two to three minutes.
6. Serve the salsa warm, room temperature or chilled.

As you can probably guess by the name, Texas Green is one of the state’s most iconic salsas. It’s served in taquerias throughout Texas and is most famous for its addictive heat. The featured artist here is the jalapeño. In fact, the salsa is literally just jalapeños, garlic and avocado oil. There are hundreds of different styles, but the charred version, is particularly tasty, as it adds just a hint of smoke to the base flavors.

Texas Green

Ingredients

10 to 15 jalapeños, stemmed

5 cloves garlic

1/4 cup avocado oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Pre-heat a skillet to medium-high heat.
2. Place the jalapeños and garlic in the skillet.
3. Rest jalapeños on a cutting board with the garlic and cover both with plastic wrap for five to 10 minutes, which makes the skins easier to peel off.
4. Halve the jalapeños.
5. Put garlic and jalapeños into a blender or food processor. Pulse, then slowly introduce the avocado oil until the texture of the sauce is thick but not oily. The color should be a pale green-yellow.

It wouldn’t be a salsa bar without a standout salsa verde. The traditional recipe is a tomatillo and serrano base that is more flavorful than it is death-defying.

Verde

Ingredients

8 medium-sized tomatillos, husks and stems removed

2 serrano chilies, stemmed but with seeds

1/2 white onion

2 cloves garlic

Salt to taste

Directions

1. Add the tomatillos, serrano chilies, onion and garlic to a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the tomatillos have turned pale green.
2. Remove the pan from the heat and allow everything to cool. Transfer everything to a blender, removing water in excess of two cups, and blend.