By Salsa negra
Chiles fried nearly black in oil with garlic. Intensely hot, deeply savory, keeps a month, and a few drops go a long way.
- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 14 min
- Makes
- about 1 cup
- Difficulty
- Medium
You will sweat. Serve it with a small spoon.
Ingredients
Makes about 1 cup
- 20 japones chile or chile de arbol
- 8 cloves garlic peeled
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp maggi seasoning Maggi seasoning
- ⅓ cup water
- 1 tbsp white vinegar
- ¼ white onion
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp piloncillo or dark brown sugar
- 1 tbsp juice lime (optional)
Keeps 1 month refrigerated
Method
- 1
Heat the oil in a small skillet over medium — never high. Fry the peeled garlic cloves 2 minutes until golden, then lift them out.
- 2
Add the chiles, stems and all. Fry 2 to 3 minutes, turning constantly, until they darken to a deep brown-black. Pull them a shade before you think you should: they keep cooking in the residual oil.
- 3
Take the pan off the heat immediately and let the chiles cool in the oil for 5 minutes. Do not discard that oil — it goes into the salsa.
- 4
Blend the chiles, garlic, onion, oil, water, Worcestershire, Maggi, vinegar, salt, pepper and piloncillo for a full minute, until very smooth and almost black.
- 5
Return to the pan and cook 5 minutes over low heat, stirring, until it thickens to the texture of a loose paste.
- 6
Off the heat, add the lime juice. Cool completely, then jar. It thickens further as it cools.
Good with
Grilled steak · Seafood cocktails · Michelada rims · A few drops on almost anything
Very dark, nearly black, intensely savory and properly hot. Salsa negra is not a table salsa you spoon over food — it is a concentrate you use in drops, closer in spirit to a chili paste than to a pico de gallo.
It also keeps a month, which makes it one of the most practical things to have in the fridge.
Everything depends on not burning the chiles
There is no second technique in this recipe. Fry the chiles correctly and it is excellent; take them thirty seconds too far and the entire batch is bitter and unsalvageable.
Medium heat. Never high. Turn them constantly. They should go from red to a deep brown-black over two to three minutes, and you should pull the pan while they still look a shade lighter than you want, because they continue cooking in the hot oil after the heat is off.
If you smell anything acrid, it is already too late.
Why chile japones rather than chile de arbol
They look almost identical and are close relatives. The difference that matters here is skin thickness: the japonés has a noticeably tougher wall and tolerates hot oil, where the árbol scorches faster.
For anything fried — this salsa, chile oil, a wok — the japonés is the better chile. For soaked-and-blended salsas the árbol’s brighter, sharper flavor is preferable.
In the US the japonés is often easier to find in the Asian aisle than the Mexican one, since the same dried chile is sold for Sichuan and Thai cooking.
The oil is an ingredient
After frying, that oil holds most of the capsaicin and a large share of the flavor. It goes into the blender.
Pouring it off and blending the chiles with fresh oil produces a much weaker salsa and wastes the entire point of the frying step.
Worcestershire and Maggi
These look like odd additions to a Mexican recipe and they are entirely traditional in this one. Both are commonplace in Mexican kitchens and both are on US supermarket shelves.
They provide the savory, almost meaty backbone that distinguishes salsa negra from a plain fried-chile salsa. Without them it is hot and toasty but hollow.
If you cannot find Maggi, soy sauce plus an extra teaspoon of Worcestershire is a reasonable stand-in.
Use it in drops
Twenty chiles in one cup makes something considerably more concentrated than a normal salsa. A quarter teaspoon on a taco is a serving. A full spoonful is a mistake people make once.
It is superb on grilled steak, in seafood cocktails, around the rim of a michelada glass, and stirred into anything that needs depth and heat at the same time.
Keeping it
Sealed jar, refrigerated, a month. It thickens over time; a few drops of water and a stir bring it back.
Always use a clean spoon. That is what decides whether it lasts a month or two weeks.
Common questions
How hot is this?
Level 4 — genuinely hot. Twenty chiles in one cup is a high concentration, and it is meant to be used in drops rather than spoonfuls. A quarter teaspoon on a taco is a normal serving.
Mine came out bitter. What happened?
The chiles burned. This is the failure mode of this recipe and it is not recoverable — throw it out and start again. The line between properly blackened and burnt is about twenty seconds. Use medium heat, never high, turn constantly, and pull them early. Chile japonés is more forgiving here than chile de árbol because its skin is thicker.
What is Maggi, and do I need it?
A dark, salty liquid seasoning, sold in most US supermarkets in the international aisle. It brings a deep savory note that is doing real work here. If you cannot find it, use soy sauce plus an extra teaspoon of Worcestershire. Skipping both leaves the salsa flat — the savory backbone is much of what makes salsa negra distinctive.
Can I use chile de arbol instead of japones?
Yes, and many people do. Japonés has a thicker skin that tolerates hot oil better, which is why it is the traditional choice for anything fried. Chile de árbol is sharper and brighter and burns faster. If you use árbol, drop the heat and watch it constantly.
Why does it keep a month?
Oil, vinegar, salt and sugar together, plus everything having been cooked hot. There is very little free water for anything to grow in. It is the longest-keeping salsa on this site after the machas.