Peach Salsa

Peach salsa at its best is both sweet and acidic. It delivers green chile spiciness that punches through the peaches alongside a lemon undercurrent that perfumes the whole creation. You make peach salsa, preferably by hand, when peaches are perfectly in season, and then use it to improve a long list of summer culinary creations - tacos, quesadillas, a quinoa bowl, or baked potatoes over a campfire. It’s a perfect summer salsa.

Peach Salsa: The Ingredients

With confetti color and explosive flavor, this seasonal salsa is a universally beloved. The ingredient list is short, so sourcing ingredients at their peak is key.

• Peaches: Seek out sweet, ripe peaches without any soft spots. Alternately, nectarines can be used in this recipe. Peaches or nectarines, they should taste amazing, that’s the goal. Go for flavor first, with an eye toward texture, and take into account the color of the peach or nectarine flash as well. Different varieties range in color from white through deep yellow.
• Tomatoes: Look for just-picked, ripe tomatoes with vibrant color and great flavor. Use whatever tomatoes are best, it can be a mix! Cherry tomatoes, heirlooms, yellow tomatoes, orange ones, etc.
• Serrano chiles: Serrano chiles deliver a kick of spicy green flavor in this salsa. It also plays an important roll in balancing out the sweetness of the peaches. Start with one, then add another if you like your salsa a bit spicier. If you have jalapeño on hand instead, use those (to taste), no problem.
• Rosemary: Rosemary delivers an unexpected earthiness to this salsa. You don’t need much, but it’s worth cutting a few sprigs if you have rosemary in your yard or garden.

Chop by Hand or Food Processor?

You can either hand chop the ingredients in salsa. Or use a food processor. There are pros and cons to both approaches.

• Chop by Hand: When making a fresh salsa, like this one, hand chopping each of the ingredients is my preference. The structure and separation between ingredients is retained, and you can control the shape and uniformity of how each ingredients is chopped. It takes a lot longer, but the resulting salsa is arguably better.
• Use a Food Processor: If you use a food processor to pulse salsa ingredients, your salsa will come together in a flash, a few minutes maximum. It’s a compelling reason to automate the process. But you can end up with a less defined salsa, and a salsa like this peach salsa benefits from being well defined.

To retain the best aspects of each approach, a happy medium might be this: run each ingredient through the food processor individually. You can control the chop of each one, and stir them together at the end before seasoning.

How To Serve Peach Salsa

This salsa is bright and fantastic on many things beyond tacos, quesadilla, and the like. Some ideas:

• Spoon onto a veggie burger or tofu burger.
• Serve under or over grilled veggie kebabs.
• Peach Salsa & Chickpea Salad: Toss with lots of chickpeas (or kidney beans), cucumbers, chopped carrots, etc. and salad for an easy feel-good lunch idea.
• Accent an omelette along with a bit of sour cream or creme fraiche.
• Corn Salad: Switch it up from this corn salad to one made with grilled corn tossed with a few big scoops of this peach salsa.
• Bruschetta - slather grilled bread with a good, soft cheese, and top with peach salsa.
• Grated Carrot and Peach Salad: Stir this salsa into a bowl of grated carrots. Season and top with lots of toasted sesame for a twist on grated carrot salad. This another thing I would put in the category of feel-good lunch ideas.

Peach Salsa Variations

There are a lot of ways to tweak this recipe. Here are a few ideas I’ve noted over the years.

• Ginger: add grated fresh ginger to the salsa (to your liking). Start with a couple teaspoons and go from there. Peel the ginger before grating.
• Lime leaf: Makrut lime leaves are found in many Thai, Cambodian, and Vietnamese markets in my area. They are also abundant in my yard. I love cooking with lime leaves, and this peach salsa is no exception. Finely sliver 2-3 makrut lime leave and add with the rest of the ingredients.
• Grilled peaches: Grill the peaches prior to chopping, and add to the rest of the salsa ingredients.
• Pluots: A favorite stone fruit, pluots are special. Follow the recipe below, swapping in pluots for the peaches called for. It's the same recipe, using pluots.

More Summer Recipes

• Green Bean Salad with Peaches
• Summer Fruit Salad
• Pluot Summer Salad
• Watermelon Poke
• Summer Berry Crisp
• Roasted Tomato Salsa
• all summer recipes

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