4 Fun Salsa Bar Recipes

One of my favorite things to enjoy in the summer is all the fresh produce from — I'd love to say my garden, but I haven't quite made it to getting one of those planted, so I love all the fresh produce from — my mom's garden!

I had to share some of my favorite recipes so you can throw an amazing salsa bar for your next party or gathering. I wanted a variety of choices for my Salsa Bar. I wanted to be able to make several different things and not make a HUGE mess doing it, so I made all these salsas in the Blendtec Blender!!

Seriously, one amazing blender made these recipes come together so fast and I only had to mess up one jar! You might think I had to use a pan to heat up the Queso though, right? NOPE! The Blendtec blender has the ability to heat things up with its soup button! How amazing is that? Get all the recipes below and find out how easy it is to make this salsa bar for your next summer party!

The Salsa Bar Setup

Salsas

The four recipes I chose to include were:

1. Cucumber Salsa
2. Green Salsa
3. Queso
4. Fruit Salsa

Chips

I also offered a variety of chips:

• Regular Tortilla Chips
• Black Bean Tortilla Chips
• Cinnamon & Sugar Chips

I found the Black Bean Tortilla Chips at Walmart. They were the Tostidos brand and they are extremely tasty and flavorful! The Cinnamon & Sugar Chips I purchased at my local Taco Time restaurant. The best part was that I could go through the drive-thru which made it easy to grab really quickly. I ordered five packages of their Crustos, which is what they call them.

Display

For table setup, I didn't want anything huge but I wanted it to be accessible for multiple people. I used a small round patio table and covered it with a tablecloth.  I had this cute basket from Hobby Lobby and lined it with food-safe papers so the chips wouldn't fall through. Using this basket, I was able to save space and make room for all of the salsa bowls. Finally, I used some cute, small chalkboard signs to add labels so everyone knew what they were eating.

Onto the recipes!

1. CUCUMBER SALSA

Recipe by Donene Clawson

Makes 10 Cups

Ingredients:

1 Jalapeno, seeded

10-12 Tomatoes, blanched & peeled

1-2 Medium Cucumbers, peeled and chopped into chunks

1/2 Red Onion, chopped into chunks

2 Serrano Peppers, seeded

3 TBSP Cilantro

1 tsp. Minced Garlic

2 tsp. Sea Salt

1 tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 can Tomato Paste

2 TBSP Fresh Lime Juice

Nature's Season & Pepper to taste

Instructions

Add water to a pot and bring to a boil. Add tomatoes and let cook for 1 Minute. Remove promptly and put into ice cold water. You should be able to remove the entire peel off of the tomato in seconds. This is called blanching! (I was always so worried this was a major ordeal, but it was super easy)

Peel and chop cucumber into chunks, deseed the jalapeno and serrano peppers. chop the red onion, wash the cilantro, and squeeze the limes.

You will want to chop your tomatoes separate from the other ingredients so they don't turn into water because the other ingredients will require more pulses.

Now for the fun part — taste testing! Make sure to add more salt, pepper and seasoning as desired. I always add a lot more salt for my taste.

2. GREEN SALSA

Recipe by Knorr.com

Makes 2 1/2 Cups

Ingredients:

1 Pd. Tomatillos, Husked

1 Serrano Chili Pepper, seeded

1 Clove Garlic , Peeled

1 Meduim Yellow Onion, Cut into chunks

1/4 Cup Fresh Cilantro

1 Knorr Chicken Bouillon Cube

 Instructions:

Place Tomatillos, Peppers, Garlic and Water to cover in a medium pot. Boil 5 minutes or until tender.

Reserve 1/2 Cup cooking liquid, then drain. Let cool.

Puree tomatillos, peppers, garlic, onion, cilantro, knorr chicken flavor bouillon cube in Blendtec blender, adding as much of the reserved water as needed to make a smooth salsa.

3. QUESO

Recipe by Sugarcoated Housewife

Makes 2 1/2 cups

INGREDIENTS:

16 Oz. Velveeta Cheese, Cubed

1 Cup Milk

1 tsp. Smoked Paprika

1 tsp. Salt

1 (15 oz.) can no-bean chili

1 tsp. Chili Powder

1 tsp. Cumin

1 TBSP Lime Juice

Add all ingredients into Blendtec blender and press the soup button let that run through the cycle and then hit it again. The first cycle will make it warm and if you do it 2 times it will be steaming hot and so smooth!!

4. FRUIT SALSA

Recipe by Sugarcoated Housewife

Makes 3 cups

Ingredients:

1 LB. Strawberries

2 Pkg. Raspberries

2 Kiwis, peeled

2 Granny Smith apples, Peeled and chopped into chunks.

1/4 Cup Strawberry Puree ( I used homemade strawberry freezer jam)

Sugar to taste

 Instructions:

Add all ingredients into Blendtec blender and pulse to the desired consistency. Add sugar for desired sweetness.

Seriously this was so pretty that I didn't want to blend it all up!! Serve with the cinnamon sugar chips.

I provided baskets with the matching paper liners and small individual cups for all guests to fill and take a plate with them to eat! The cups came with lids so you could make a to-go station too if you wanted to send guests home with samples and chips!  

Blender

You will be able to get this salsa bar set up with homemade recipes very quickly with the help of the Blendtec blender! There are so many things to make and with the latest model, you can use the touch screen and specially designed preset buttons to make Smoothies, Ice Cream, Soups, and Dips. Chop and Clean with additional settings too!! The Pulse button also has a slider bar where you can control the speed of the pulse!! The machine is brilliant and makes creating amazing food easy and quick! I highly recommend this product it is AMAZING!!!