This Simple Corn Salsa is delicious, versatile, and super easy! Serve it as an appetizer with chips, as a side dish with your entrée, or add a touch of crunchy sweetness to your tacos, nachos, or rice bowls.
This is fantastic as an appetizer or side dish to my Chicken Thigh Enchiladas or my Carnitas Street Tacos! We also use this as a topping for my Loaded Birria Nachos - these are so, so good, you're not going to want to miss them!
Ingredients
This recipe uses sweet corn, charred poblano pepper, half of a red onion, cilantro, lime juice, kosher salt, and fresh cracked black pepper.
I kept things pretty simple for this easy corn salsa. Feel free to use fresh corn when it's in season instead of frozen to take it to another level.
The hardest part of this recipe is roasting the poblano pepper and removing the skin. I like to make sure that almost all of the exterior of the pepper is blackened and blistered. This adds a subtle, almost "smoky" flavor to the dish. This can be done in several ways:
- Grilling over high heat
- Roasting directly over the flames of a gas burner
- Broiling on high for several minutes
The key to removing the skin is to put the roasted, grilled, or broiled poblano into a container and cover it for several minutes. This allows everything to steam and get soft. After several minutes, you can scrape the blackened pieces off and discard them. At this point, you can remove the stem, seeds, and dice, and then add them to the salsa.
Variations
This recipe is almost endlessly customizable as well!
- Want more heat? Add diced jalapeños or serrano peppers.
- Want to add complexity and deeper flavor? Roast or grill the corn over direct heat before mixing.
- Add sweetness with using white corn instead of yellow corn.
- Add chili powder and cumin to add a touch of spice.
Did you make this recipe for Simple Corn Salsa?
Let me know in the comments below how yours turned out, and don't forget to leave a rating!
Recipe
Simple Corn Salsa (Chipotle Copycat)
Equipment
- 2 Quart Pot
- Medium Bowl
Ingredients
- 1 ½ Cup Frozen or Fresh Sweet Corn
- 1 Poblano Pepper Charred, Peeled, Seeded & Finely Diced
- ½ Medium Red Onion Finely Diced
- Juice of 2 Limes
- Kosher Salt To Taste
- Black Pepper To Taste
- ¼ Cup Cilantro Finely Minced
Instructions
- In a medium pot bring 2 - 3 Cups of water with several pinches of kosher salt to a boil.
- Add the sweet corn and boil for 5 to 8-minutes, until softened, yet still slightly crunchy.
- Strain the corn and set aside until cool.
- While the corn is cooking, grill, broil or char your poblano pepper using the cooking method of your choice until the skin is blistered and blackened all over. (If broiling or grilling, cut the pepper in half and remove the stems and seeds. This cooks both sides of the pepper at the same time.)
- Immediately place the poblano pepper in a dish and cover with a tight lid or plastic wrap for approximately 5-minutes.
- Scrape off the blackened skin and discard. Remove the stem and seeds, and finely dice.
- While corn is cooking, and the poblano is resting. Finely dice half of a red onion, finely mince the cilantro, and halve your limes.
- Add the cooked corn, cooked poblano pepper, onion, cilantro and lime juice to a medium sized bowl, tossing to combine.
- Add kosher salt and black pepper to taste.
- Serve with chips as an appetizer or topping for your next taco night, or on rice bowls.
Miles says
Oh my. If want a salsa that adds brightness, freshness and a pleasing crunch to all those rich, fatty, salty tacos, look no further! This was the perfect addition to the tacos and chips at our Cinco de Mayo party. We had lots of people ask for the recipe.
Another plus: it's very easy to make it more/less spicy, depending on your tastes.
One note: be prepared for a little bit of a mess when taking the charred skin off of the poblanos, but it's definitely a step worth doing.
Spencer Klickman says
Awesome! So glad it was a hit at your Cinco de Mayo party!
Karen Goode says
Can’t wait to try this!
Spencer Klickman says
It's so easy and so good! Give it a try and let me know how it was!
Alecia says
Looks yummy!!
Michelle says
This is so delicious! I could eat it every day!