Made with only 5 ingredients, this Chile de Arbol Salsa is the perfect taco salsa. It’s spicy, goes well with Mexican favorites like tacos, tostadas, and gorditas, and is freezer friendly!
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This Chile de Arbol Salsa recipe is my family’s version of the quintessential Mexican taco salsa.
It’s the salsa that’s always on the table when we’re serving tacos, tostadas, flautas, sopes, and gorditas. It’s my dad’s number one favorite condiment and will forever remind me of my family.
If you’re not a fan of spicy food, this salsa probably isn’t for you. Instead, you may want to try making my 5-Minute fresh homemade salsa or this easy salsa verde.
But if you love spicy food as much as I do, this recipe is for you!
What is Chile de Arbol?
Chile de Arbol is a type of red chile that’s commonly used in Mexican cuisine. The chiles themselves are quite small, but they’re very spicy, ranging from 15,000-30,000 on the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) scale.
For reference, the average jalapeño pepper ranges between 2,500-8,000 SHU.
How to Make Chile de Arbol Salsa
- In a medium pot, add the arbol chiles and enough water to cover them completely. Bring to a boil over high heat, remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let the chiles soak for 10 minutes to soften.
- Using a slotted spoon, transfer the softened chiles to a blender. Add ¾ cup of fresh water, the tomatoes, garlic, and salt. Blend until completely smooth. Taste and add more salt as needed.
Tips and Tricks
- This salsa is meant to be spicy. That being said, if it’s way too spicy for you, add one or two more plum tomatoes to the blender and puree until smooth.
- This salsa should be fairly smooth. Depending on the power of your blender, it can take anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes of blending time.
Ways to Use Chile de Arbol Salsa
Aside from eating this salsa with homemade tortilla chips (which I love), here are a few of my favorite ways to eat it.
- drizzle it on easy chicken tacos, breakfast tacos, or ground beef tacos
- have it with your chorizo and eggs for breakfast
- mix it into soups like chicken tortilla soup, black bean soup, and pozole rojo to add a little spice
If you’re anything like my dad and absolutely LOVE spicy food (the spicier, the better), then you may want to completely omit the tomatoes.
I modified this recipe to my taste, but when my dad makes it, he doesn’t ever add tomatoes! So if that’s you, go for it! You can always add in more tomatoes later.
Storing and Freezing
To store: Transfer the salsa to an airtight container and store it in the fridge for 1 to 2 months.
To freeze: Let the salsa come to room temperature. Place it in a freezer-safe storage bag or container and freeze it for up 6 months. When ready to eat, remove the salsa from the freezer a day before and thaw it in the fridge.
More Mexican Salsas
Ingredients
- 1 ounce árbol chiles, rinsed and stemmed
- water, as needed
- 2 large plum tomatoes, halved
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- In a medium pot, add the chiles de arbol and enough water to completely cover them. Bring to a boil over high heat.
- Remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let the chiles soak for 10 minutes to soften.
- Using a slotted spoon, transfer the softened chiles to a blender. Add ¾ cup of fresh water, the tomatoes, garlic, and salt. Blend until completely smooth.
- Taste and add more salt as needed.
Video
Isabel’s Tips:
- Spice level: This salsa is meant to be very spicy. If it’s way too spicy for your liking, add in an extra tomato or two to help dilute the heat.
- Storage: This salsa will keep in the fridge in an airtight container for 1 week.
- Freezing: To freeze, let the salsa come to room temperature. Place it in a freezer-safe storage bag or container and freeze it for up to 6 months. When ready to eat, remove the salsa from the freezer a day before and thaw it in the fridge.
Nutrition Information
A pinch (1/4 tsp) of coriander (ground cilantro seeds) takes this up a notch!
Yes! Yes! Yes! This is the only recipe I make when making chile. I am a California girl stuck in the Midwest. No one understands the importance of “spicy” out here without using vinegar. This recipe is 100%
Super good!
I just made the salsa. Great way tousee huge bag of Arbols I have. I used 3 Campari tomatos and 1 tbsp tomato paste to thicken. Really good with chips! Next time I make tacos I’m putting this on top. Hot but not killer.
This recipe is fine, except a word of warning: the Chile de Arbol I got online was Scotch Bonnet/Habanero hot! 😳. And I even deseeded them- didn’t matter. I don’t understand, because I have eaten this type of salsa in restaurants in New Mexico, and while it was indeed hot, I was able to enjoy it. It was serrano pepper hot. I guess my point is be careful from whom you get your dried peppers. I had to take a couple tablespoons of this and make tomato/garlic puree and add it to that. But I can tell this is a good recipe, given the texture and what flavor I could taste through the extreme capsaicin burn.
The hottest part of a chili pepper is not the seeds. It’s the placenta, the spongy layer in the middle the seeds are attached to. Hope that helps you next time you want to remove some heat from a chili pepper.
I went the dad hot route. My tongue is still hanging out of my mouth. I want to eat more though. Very easy. Very yum !
I love the recipe, I don’t make to hot because of my little guy. But otherwise it’s good
Love that this recipe is simple and delicious. I doubled the recipe to 2 oz of chilis. Wow! It’s super spicy. Might add the recommendation of adding a few more tomatoes. Cheers from London!
My mother taught me to make salsa. Her recipe includes a little bit of cilantro. We love it with eggs in the morning, on some tortilla chips, in burritos, on tacos, well, on most anything at time 😋
To the author- in reply to another comment you said you like to use 2 chiles. Your recipe calls for an ounce of dried chiles. An ounce of dried chiles is WAY more than 2 chiles…an ounce is probably 20-30 chiles. what gives?
Hi Scott! That was a personal preference I shared based on the feedback from another comment. This recipe uses a whole ounce of dried chiles to make a batch to store and use for later. If you’re making this recipe, I recommend following the instructions on the recipe page.
Store bought salsa is never spicy enough – this turned out delicious and had the perfect heat for me. Yummy on chips or tacos. This was my first time making my own salsa and it was a very simple process. Thank you!!
Thank you, Noah!
This is delicious thank you for the recipe. I had the worst coughing fit from just stemming the peppers that my husband had to finish that step which has nothing to do with the your recipe, it’s just me. I was able to make it through the rest of the recipe. It’s very easy with minimal ingredients.
Wow, it is very spicy. I eat spicy Indian and Chinese and with two tomatoes, I thought the salsa was too spicy (burning in fact, to my taste uneatable). I added in two plum tomatoes to dial it down. First time making this style of salsa, I’d dial down the arbol Chiles next time around and maybe look for some roasted onion. Thanks!!!
Hi Tim! Yes its definitely spicy! When I eat it I can only put a few drops on my food.
Thank you Isabel. I made this exactly as your recipe states. It was perfect and hot. I took it to a family BBQ today and it was a spicy hit. My dad loves hot salsa and this got his approval. Thank you!
Oh my goodness I have been looking for a recipe like this for so long. This is absolutely amazing and it’s spicy! I love spicy! I didn’t have tomatoes, so I used 1 small can of tomato sauce, so good!!! If you want it less spicy use 2.
I made this yesterday and it came out really watery/soupy. I would recommend not to add water at all and see how it blends up w/ the size and moisture of the tomato amount you use. The taste is good and I’ll experiment with the tomato amount on my next try. Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Jose, thank you for the feedback!
This is my husbands favorite salsa, I can’t keep enough of it in the house. He absolutely loves it. Yes, I use the entire 1oz of peppers, it is hot & if you don’t like hot or are sensitive to it this probably isn’t the salsa for you.
Mine was fine the first time but second time with a new bag of tomatoes it is soupy. I blended it just like the first time and didn’t even add water this time and still came out light colored and soupy. I added a ton more tomatoes to it but it doesn’t matter, still same soupiness
Hi Dave! That’s weird it did that, would you mind elaborating? We may be able to help!
I found out what the problem is:
1) don’t try to double the recipe because you’ll overblend it trying to blend that much at once
2) I have a vitamix blender which is super powerful. Only put it up to 3-4 or else it will overblend
3) Don’t add too much water, might want to add less than the recipe states
Also I only put ONE pepper in this recipe, plenty hot for me. Anything more I can’t take it.
I’m glad you were able to figure out the problem! Chile de Arbol is definitely spicy and I personally like to add about 2 when I’m using them. Thanks for getting back to us!