Why is salsa from a jar so horrible?

[WhyNot]

@salinqmind

Apparently I don’t know nothin’, because I LIKE salsa in a jar.

Well, to be honest, so do I, but I appreciate it as a different beast. Much like I enjoy stovetop mac and cheese and homemade mac and cheese baked in the oven with little crunchy bits on top. They’re both good, and they bear a resemblance to one another and share a name, but if I’m in the mood for one, the other won’t do instead.

Try some fresh salsa sometime and see what you think. Even the stuff in your supermarket’s deli section is enough different to jarred to give you an idea of the difference. Me, I’m lucky - the closest grocery stores around here are Mexican immigrant owned and operated, and those guys can make some aMAZing salsa before 6am, and it’s just perfect at dinner time.

[smithsb]

I love these food opinions. It just screams for double blind taste tests. Same as for homemade versus jarred/canned pasta sauce comparisons.

We have a local (small) group of mexican restaurants who make a good red salsa but it lacks during the winter probably due to the quality of available veggies. I go for the green (hot) salsa during this period though it’s too spicy in the summer. I don’t mind a little sweat from the spices, I just don’t want to be in pain from my meal.

The jarred sauces seem more consistent year round and no rule that you can’t spice them up or add you own flavors to make it more personal. I like the Newman and will look for the Herdez. I read the labels for preservatives, sugars, etc… and go with what you feel is best for you.

[Morgenstern]

My daughters step FIL makes three of the absolute best salsas going. Medium, Hot and Oh Hell Yeah Hot. I agree. Fresh salsa spoils you for that canned stuff.
But for simple, inexpensive hot sauce, that Tapatio stuff is pretty darn good.

[RickJay]

I love Pace brand salsa.

Fresh stuff can be better, but fresh stuff can also suck. I’ve eaten freshly made salsa I wouldn’t feed to a dog I disliked.

[Jackmannii]

@devilsknew

Well, yes and no. In my experience most restaurant “fresh” salsa I have eaten is invariably made with some kind of cooked and processed, canned tomatoes… it just wouldn’t be right without them. I actually prefer canned tomatoes in my salsa over fresh, they are concentrated in flavor and much more ripe and of a better quality and variety than any fresh, flavorless, mealy abomination of a fresh tomato available at groceries or markets. I guess concentrated canned tomato strips make the best salsa.

Where are you getting this “concentrated canned tomato” stuff from? :dubious:
It’s true that most full-sized tomatoes available at supermarkets don’t taste like much. Canned tomato varieties are selected for the same reasons though - they ship well and ripen decently when picked green. Flavor is still not a significant consideration. The only difference with the canned stuff is the salt, MSG, formaldehyde and whatever else they throw in there.

Good fresh restaurant salsa is vastly preferable to any canned salsa I’ve tasted. Chi-Chi’s used to have a very good salsa. Of course, they ran into that big hepatitis A outbreak traced to green onions and went bust. Given the potential if exaggerated risk of disease outbreaks associated with fresh veggies (remember the Spinach Plague?) it’s not surprising that restaurants play it on the safe side and cook their salsa ingredients.
What I do is get pico de gallo and add it to our favorite Mexican place’s salsa. Much preferable to the basic product.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@WhyNot

While the tomatoes in restaurant salsa may be canned, the rest of the stuff generally isn’t, while *everything *in the jarred salsa is cooked - it’s an inevitable part of the canning process.

Canned/cooked garlic, onions, jalapenos, cilantro, etc. lose their, for lack of a better word, “bright” notes. The flavors that sit on “top” of the flavor profile are flattened and dulled, and with salsa, you really miss that. Then they dump a bunch of salt and often sugar in there to try and make up for those lost flavors, and it just compounds the tragedy.

I think this may be the Correct Answer. I love fresh, restaurant salsa, mainly because I can really taste the cilantro. Jarred salsa just isn’t the same at all, and if all jarred salsa disappeared from the planet tonight, I would count it no great loss.

[devilsknew]

@Jackmannii

Where are you getting this “concentrated canned tomato” stuff from? :dubious:
It’s true that most full-sized tomatoes available at supermarkets don’t taste like much. Canned tomato varieties are selected for the same reasons though - they ship well and ripen decently when picked green. Flavor is still not a significant consideration. The only difference with the canned stuff is the salt, MSG, formaldehyde and whatever else they throw in there.

Most homemade, Mexican restaurant, red salsas I have tried contain either canned tomatoes or a combination of canned and fresh. I heard from somebody on this board that a common restaurant/instututional addition to many homemade salsas and the right product for the job are concentrated tomato strips.

I don’t know if you’re being fecetious, but canned and processed tomatoes are not bred to be “picked green”. The fields are usually within a day of the processing plant/s, and The tomatoes are picked at their summer ripest and redeswt. I know, I’ve seen them hauling trailers of bright red tomatoes straight from the field to the canning factory. They are bred to be picked and processed at their ripest and most flavorful and usually all the processor will do is cook them and adjust for seasoning and acidity. About the only thing they add to canned tomatoes is sometimes salt and sugar or an acetic addition. Just like you would do if you canned them yourself.

Almost all canned tomatoes are reduced and concentrated to a degree, because of the cooking/canning process

[needscoffee]

@devilsknew

…I don’t know if you’re being fecetious…

I don’t think I like that word.

[devilsknew]

Well, add the vowel of your choice, then eh? It’s a typo… so sue me.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@devilsknew

Most homemade, Mexican restaurant, red salsas I have tried contain either canned tomatoes or a combination of canned and fresh. I heard from somebody on this board that a common restaurant/instututional addition to many homemade salsas and the right product for the job are concentrated tomato strips.

I don’t know if you’re being fecetious, but canned and processed tomatoes are not bred to be “picked green”. The fields are usually within a day of the processing plant/s, and The tomatoes are picked at their summer ripest and redeswt. I know, I’ve seen them hauling trailers of bright red tomatoes straight from the field to the canning factory. They are bred to be picked and processed at their ripest and most flavorful and usually all the processor will do is cook them and adjust for seasoning and acidity. About the only thing they add to canned tomatoes is sometimes salt and sugar or an acetic addition. Just like you would do if you canned them yourself.

Almost all canned tomatoes are reduced and concentrated to a degree, because of the cooking/canning process

I can corroborate from a lot of experience working in restaurants (incvluding a stint at Chi Chis’ back in the day) that most restaurant salsas use canned tomatoes. It’s really the rest of the ingredients that tend to be fresh (the onions, cilantro and peppers).

[BigT]

I think the difference in flavor also allows fresh salsa to be simpler. That salsa I described has no onions, vinegar or garlic, and very little salt. In fact, it doesn’t even have tomato chunks: it’s more of a puree. In canned salsa, that’s usually the sign of an inferior salsa, but no one cares on the fresh.

I still think the fact that a restaurant can easily change its recipe based on direct feedback from all its clientele is also a significant difference, but it seems that fresh vs. non-fresh is quite important, too.

[Oslo_Ostragoth]

Try Herdez.

[jackdavinci]

In some grocery stores, they have salsa in plastic tubs in the vegetable/deli section which tastes a little bit fresher than the kind in jars.

[kushiel]

Jarred salsa is very watery. It’s a lot like ‘hey, let’s liquidify some tomatoes and then throw in a couple of diced veggies’ as opposed to ‘hey, we have some veggies and spices, let’s put them together with some tomatoes’.

[lawoot]

Of course, everyone knows the real good salsa’s imported from New York City…

[MikeF]

Pico de gallo is the way to go. Fresh everything except for the jalapeños - I like the pickled ones better. As far as jarred salsa goes, Green Mountain Gringo makes some acceptable stuff. I never heard of Herdez. Is it available in the northeast?

[cgg419]

It’s available in Southern Ontario, so probably.

[Frylock]

Wow, nobody knows the correct answer?

It’s the FUCKING VINEGAR.

[SCSimmons]

I’ll second many of the comments I’ve seen in this thread: homemade salsa will be highly variable, and while canned tomatoes may be a good ingredient in homemade salsa, the other ingredients should be fresh, and it makes a difference.

The best non-restaurant salsa I’ve had (better, I thought, than most restaurant salsa) was made by my youngest son, with a mix of fresh and canned tomatoes, fresh roasted jalapeno peppers, fresh garlic, fresh cilantro, and probably some other herbs and/or spices. That was bloody good stuff …

[pulykamell]

@Jackmannii

It’s true that most full-sized tomatoes available at supermarkets don’t taste like much. Canned tomato varieties are selected for the same reasons though - they ship well and ripen decently when picked green. Flavor is still not a significant consideration. The only difference with the canned stuff is the salt, MSG, formaldehyde and whatever else they throw in there.

From personal experience, there is a huge chasm of flavor between most supermarket tomatoes and canned tomatoes. Pick up a can of Muir Glen (my favorite), Carmelina San Marzanos, or even Red Golds or Progresso, and compare them with what you can find at the produce section of your grocery store, especially this time of year. There’s just no comparison, and it’s not attributable to salt (as you can adjust for salt yourself with supermarket tomatoes, and Muir Glen even sells no-salt added varieties if that’s your thing. Where your MSG comment came from, I have no idea. I don’t know of any major brands of whole tomatoes that put MSG in their product.) Except for when I pick them out of my garden or perhaps buy them at a farmer’s market, I never buy fresh tomatoes any more. Almost invariably, they suck.