Unlike French sauce that are heavily based in cream and butter, I love salsa — vegan, light, refreshing, and appetising!
Basically, a salsa is chopped herbs + shallot + salt + olive oil. I always have these on hand, so a salsa is only minutes away. It’s fun to experience with other herbs or adding ginger, soy sauce for an Asian touch. Here we add jalapeño for Mexican flavour.

Salsa Serving Suggestions
- Almost everything! Like Samin‘s ideas — any fish and meat in usual cooking method, like grill, roast, braise and poach; for vegetables, as a sauce after grilling or roasting, or even blanching; garnish for soup is a great way to serve, too!
- I used it on a chilled silken tofu, with added fried scallion and shallots for crunchiness. (The best Japanese silken tofu in the UK so far)
Mexican-ish Herb Salsa Recipe
Ingredients
Makes about 225 ml
- 1 medium shallot, finely diced
- 3 tbsp lime juice
- 10 g finely chopped coriander (incl. stems)
- 1 minced jalapeño pepper
- 1 scallion, finely chopped
- 45 ml vegetable oil
- salt
How to Make
- Combine shallot and lime juice in a small bowl to macerate for 15 minutes.
- Put the rest of the ingredients in another small bowl.
- Just before serving, place the shallot and lime juice into the herb oil. Taste and adjust salt and acidity.
Variations
- Consider pomegranate seeds, toasted pumpkin seeds, finely diced cucumber or cabbage for crunchiness.
- Finely diced mango for a little sweetness.
- Avocado will work, too, for creminess.

