A Cherry Salsa Recipe To Delight Your Senses!

One of our culinary goals is to include more raw produce into each of our meals. If you are like me, you didn’t grow up with this kind of food on the table, so this has been an on-going adventure. Our adventure led this week to try a fresh cherry salsa on pork tenderloin chops. The salsa recipe is posted on Epicuriuos from the Bon Appetit test kitchen. Since I’ve never tried a Bon Appetit recipe I didn’t like, I was good to go. Besides, our cherry tree just came ready for the harvest.

As I mixed up the ingredients, I tweaked the recipe to better fit our pallets. A few hours after eating dinner I checked the comments on the Bon Appetit recipe and found people saying that the recipe was missing something. As I tasted it, I agreed and made some tweaks. For our part, we unanimously decided this salsa paired with pork chops and couscous was the best meal we had eaten in a few weeks. Giving full credit to Bon Appetit, check out the original to see if that would be more fitting to your taste. Lots of commenters rave about the original recipe. Here I provide my version of this tasty cherry salsa.

Cherry Salsa Ingredients

• Juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup of cilantro, chopped
• 2 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2/3 pound cherries, stemmed, pitted and cut in half
• 1 Fresno chili, seeded and minced finely
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Cherry Salsa Steps

1. In a medium sized bowl, combine the lime juice, cilantro, shallots, garlic, and cherries. Stir well.
2. Add the chili a little at a time tasting for your heat tolerance. You can certainly add more than the recipe calls for if you are a chili lover.
3. Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of olive oil on the salsa then sprinkle with salt. Stir, taste, make adjustments.
4. Let the cherry salsa sit for 60 minutes or more to blend the flavors. Taste it again just before serving and adjust for salt and pepper.

We enjoyed this salsa with pork chops and couscous (toasted with minced garlic and cooked in bone broth). The couscous, cherry salsa, and the pork chops sang together just deliciously. Brown rice pilaf would work as well.

Cherry Salsa Q & A

Q: Can you freeze cherry salsa?

A: Most of the ingredients in the recipe will freeze well and the oil would help to preserve the cherries. However, once defrosted, the cherries themselves will have changed in texture and you won’t quite have the experience that you will have with the fresh salsa. We give this idea a “not super” rating but, heck, if it’s going to spoil anyway, toss it in the freezer.

Q: Cherry salsa with cilantro?

A: Yes, please!

Q: Cherry salsa for:

• Pork?
• Halibut?
• Salmon?
• Chicken?
• Beef?
• Scallops?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! The recipe above will go wonderfully with all of these meats.

Q: Cherry salsa with tortilla chips?

A: We have tested this variation many times and highly recommend the combination. 🙂