By Morita salsa (smoky chipotle table salsa)
Dried morita chiles with roasted tomato and a little piloncillo. Real smoke from the chile itself, not from a can and not from liquid smoke.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 18 min
- Makes
- about 1½ cups
- Difficulty
- Easy
It burns and it lingers. Most table salsas live here.
Ingredients
Makes about 1½ cups
- 8 morita chile
- 3 medium tomato
- 3 cloves garlic unpeeled
- ¼ white onion
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp piloncillo or dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional)
Keeps 10 days refrigerated
Method
- 1
Toast the moritas on a dry comal over medium-low heat, 10 seconds a side. They are already smoked — the pan is only waking up their oils, and burning them adds a second, harsher smoke on top.
- 2
Cover with hot water and soak 15 minutes. Taste the soaking water: smoked chiles sometimes make it bitter. If it tastes of sweet smoke use it, otherwise blend with clean water.
- 3
Roast the tomatoes, unpeeled garlic and onion on a dry comal until blackened in patches, about 10 minutes.
- 4
Squeeze the garlic from its skins. Blend the chiles, tomatoes, garlic, onion, salt and piloncillo with ⅓ cup of liquid, about 40 seconds. Leave it slightly coarse.
- 5
Heat the oil until it shimmers, pour in the salsa and fry 6 minutes, stirring, until it darkens and thickens.
- 6
Off the heat, add the vinegar if it needs lifting. Taste for salt — smoky salsas need more than you expect.
Good with
Tacos al pastor · Grilled meat · Eggs · Quesadillas
This is what people are usually looking for when they buy a bottle of chipotle hot sauce: real smoke, from a chile that was actually smoked, without the vinegar-and-sugar wash that comes with a can.
Eight moritas in a cup and a half is a properly smoky salsa, and it is hot without being punishing.
Ten seconds, low heat
The morita has already spent days over a wood fire. The comal is not there to smoke it — it is there to warm the oils so they release aroma.
Ten seconds a side over medium-low. Longer, and you are burning a chile that is already dark, which layers an acrid smoke on top of the good one. Since color tells you nothing on a chile this dark, go by smell.
This is the single most common way this salsa goes wrong.
The soaking water is a coin flip
With most dried chiles the soaking water is worth keeping. With smoked chiles it is not reliable — the long smoking leaves phenolic compounds that dissolve and can turn the water bitter.
Taste it. Sweet smoke, use it. Scraping and harsh, throw it out. Losing a little flavor beats poisoning the whole batch with bitterness.
The meco is worse for this than the morita, but it happens with both.
The teaspoon of piloncillo is structural
It is not there to make the salsa sweet, and at this quantity you will not taste sugar.
Smoking leaves a mild bitterness behind in the chile. A little unrefined sugar cancels that bitterness and, more usefully, pushes the smoky aromatics forward so they read as smoke rather than as char.
This is exactly why American barbecue sauces are sweet, and it is not a coincidence that this salsa is excellent on ribs.
Piloncillo is sold in cones in Mexican groceries and in most US supermarkets now. Dark brown sugar is a close enough substitute — molasses is the shared ingredient.
Salt it more than feels right
Smoke suppresses the perception of salt. A morita salsa seasoned to what tastes correct while you are cooking will taste under-seasoned at the table.
Taste it after it has cooled slightly and add more than you think you need.
What it goes with
Al pastor, and grilled meat generally — smoke on smoke works.
Eggs, where it is exceptional.
Also as a barbecue-adjacent sauce on ribs or pulled pork, which is not traditional and is very good.
Keeping it
Sealed jar, refrigerated, ten days, thanks to the frying. It freezes well and the smoke survives freezing better than most flavors.
Common questions
What is the difference between morita and chipotle?
A morita is a chipotle. All chipotles are smoked jalapeños; the morita is the lightly smoked version — small, wine-red and flexible, with gentle fruity smoke. The chipotle meco is smoked much longer and is grey-brown, brittle and far more aggressive. Canned chipotle in adobo is either one, packed in a tomato-vinegar sauce. They are not interchangeable: if a recipe wants meco and you use morita, double the quantity.
Can I use canned chipotles instead?
You can, but it becomes a different salsa. The adobo brings vinegar, sugar and tomato of its own, so you lose control of the seasoning and gain a jarred quality. Dried morita gives you clean smoke and lets you build the rest. If you do use canned, start with three chiles and skip the piloncillo and vinegar.
Why sugar in a salsa?
A teaspoon in a cup and a half does not read as sweet at all. What it does is round off the faint bitterness that smoking leaves in the chile and push the smoky notes forward. It is the same principle as the sugar in an American barbecue sauce. Leave it out and the salsa tastes harsher and flatter.
Do I seed the moritas?
Optional. Moritas are small and seeding them is fiddly. Left whole, this comes out around level 3 — genuinely hot but not extreme. Seeded, closer to level 2. Most people make it whole.
No liquid smoke?
None, and none is needed. The smoke here comes from the chile, which spent days over a wood fire before it was dried. That is a rounder, more complex smoke than any bottled extract, and it is the whole reason to buy moritas.