TacoProject

Taco recipes, taquería reviews and regional guides from Austin: al pastor, birria, breakfast tacos, salsas and the stories behind them.

Marcus Bell

Three Essential Salsas: Verde, Roja and Pico de Gallo

Every great taquería has a salsa bar, and every great home cook has a few salsas in rotation. These three cover bright, smoky and fresh, and each takes less than 20 minutes.

A bowl of salsa verde
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. JED / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5)

Salsa Verde

  • 1 lb tomatillos, husked
  • 1 to 2 serranos
  • 1/4 white onion
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1/2 cup cilantro
  • Salt and lime

Boil or broil tomatillos, chiles, onion and garlic until soft and olive-colored. Blend with cilantro and salt. Tangy and perfect on carnitas.

Salsa Roja

  • 4 Roma tomatoes
  • 3 chiles de árbol
  • 2 guajillos
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 1/4 onion
  • Salt

Char the tomatoes, onion and garlic on a comal; toast the chiles briefly. Blend with a splash of water and salt. Toasty, deep, great on al pastor.

Pico de Gallo

  • 4 Roma tomatoes, diced
  • 1/2 white onion, diced
  • 1 jalapeño, minced
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • Salt

Chop everything, toss with lime and salt, rest 10 minutes and drain the excess liquid. Fresh crunch for fish tacos.

Heat guide

SalsaHeatBest with
VerdeMediumCarnitas, eggs, chicken
RojaMedium-hotAl pastor, carne asada
Pico de galloMildFish tacos, anything grilled

Browse more in Salsas & Toppings.

The Great Taco Road Trip: Four Cities, Four Days

We rented a small hatchback, packed a cooler full of limes and set out to eat our way along the Pacific coast: two days in Baja California, two days in Southern California, and far too many tortillas. Each page of this story covers one city.

Day 1: Tijuana

Al pastor tacos topped with pineapple, onion and cilantro
Photo: City Foodsters / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Tijuana is where we learned to say adobada instead of al pastor. The pork is marinated in a deep red chile paste, stacked on a trompo and shaved straight onto a small corn tortilla with a smear of guacamole sauce.

Our first stop was a busy corner stand where the taquero worked three trompos at once. We ate standing up, then walked two blocks and did it again at another stand. That became the rhythm of the day.

  • Best bite: adobada with guacamole taquero and grilled onion
  • Runner-up: carne asada on a flour tortilla, Sonora-style
  • Tip: carry small bills in pesos

Y2K Taco Survival Guide

The clock is ticking toward 2000, and nobody knows whether the VCR will survive the night. What we do know is that a well-stocked taco pantry does not need a computer chip to work.

Your Y2K taco kit

  • Dried chiles: they keep for a year and do not care what the date is
  • Masa harina and a cast iron tortilla press
  • Canned beans and chipotles in adobo
  • A camping stove and a comal, just in case
  • Batteries for the boombox. The party must go on.
SYSTEM CHECK 12/31/1999
TORTILLAS ...... OK
SALSA ......... OK
LIMES ......... OK
DATE .......... 01/01/19100 ??

Whatever happens at midnight, we will be ringing in the new millennium with carnitas. See you on the other side. Happy New Year!