I've found so many good things to help with low-sodium eating on The Intertubes that I figured I'd try to give something back. This is an adaptation of the linked Cook's Illustrated recipe, which originally appeared in the July-August 2002 issue of the magazine. It appears in modified form in the book The Best 30-Minute Recipe, and that's from where I start.

Like any denizen of the southwest, I like salsa, but it's hard to find any of them that I can eat. Most grocery-store salsas have anywhere from 130mg of sodium to 250mg of sodium per two-tablespoon serving, so if you get a basket of chips (even unsalted ones) and eat a third of a cup or so, you've shot your day's sodium requirement. Making fresh salsa isn't too hard, but I like cooked salsas like in the jar in the grocery stores. Fresh salsas taste more like "pico de gallo" to me, and while that's good, it's not salsa.

The solution, as offered in the book? Use canned diced tomatoes, which are mildly cooked as part of the canning process. It gives a taste a lot closer to the salsas I miss. Just be sure to use a good brand of no-salt diced tomatoes. I use Eden Organic diced tomatoes, which have no salt added by design. They come in a white enamel-lined can to avoid that "canned" taste, and you can order them online if your grocery store won't stock them. (If your grocer can't get Eden Foods from his distributor, he can order them directly from Eden.)

My version of the recipe doubles the Cook's Illustrated version because their original version only makes one cup of salsa, and that doesn't last very long, even though it's not hard to make. If you want to make half a recipe, you could use something like Eden Organic's Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies for deeper flavor. Those don't come in 28oz cans, though.

OK, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 small jalapeño chile, minced, seeds and ribs removed for less heat

• ½ small red onion, peeled and chopped coarse

• 2 small cloves garlic (or 1 large clove)

• ¼ cup fresh cilantro leaves (washed and dried)

• 1-1½ teaspoon salt substitute (I recommend AlsoSalt)

• ¼-½ teaspoon adobo seasoning

• 4 teaspoons lime juice from 1-2 limes

• 1 28-ounce can of best-quality no-salt-added diced tomatoes, thoroughly drained

Add all ingredients except tomatoes to bowl of food processor and pulse until minced, about five 1-second pulses, scraping sides of bowl as necessary. Add tomatoes and pulse until roughly chopped, about two 1-second pulses.

The original recipe calls for one chipotle chile en adobo sauce, minced. The vinegary adobo sauce and the chipotle (a smoked jalapeño pepper) add depth of flavor, but also adds something like 350mg of sodium to the recipe. Penzey's adobo seasoning mix (garlic, onion, black pepper, Mexican oregano, cumin, cayenne) adds a lot of the same flavor with no sodium. It's not in the original recipe.

The original recipe calls for ¼ teaspoon of table salt, which is a far cry from my list of 1-1½ teaspoons. Why? I'm looking for that cooked salsa flavor, and regular diced tomatoes have about ½ teaspoon of salt in a 14-ounce can, or 1 teaspoon in a 28-ounce can. I'm trying to replace that flavor with salt substitute, but of course, you're free to use less (or no) salt substitute and adjust flavors later.

An easy way to get more "bite" to the salsa without adding sodium is to add more fresh garlic. I mince the garlic before running it through the food processor to make sure I smash as many garlic cells as possible. It's breaching the cell walls that releases the two chemicals that give raw garlic its pungency. I mince the jalapeño, too, so that there are no big chunks left. (You can also leave in seeds and ribs on the jalapeño to add more heat. The capsaicin that makes peppers "hot" clings to the ribs, seeds, and inside membranes, so leaving them in makes the salsa hotter, even though the ribs and seeds themselves are indigestible, serving mostly as fiber.) I don't mince the cilantro ahead of time (the recipe in the book doesn't say to; the recipe online does) because the food processor does that well enough.

The online (original) recipe adds:

To Make Ahead:
The salsa can be refrigerated, wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, for up to 2 days. Season with additional lime juice and salt before serving.

I just keep it in a jar in the fridge, and it doesn't last long enough to go bad. Cook's calls this "One-Minute Salsa," but it takes me more than one minute to make it—usually about ten minutes, including washing the food processor, but it's extremely cheap (compared to $4/jar for salsas that contain 1500mg or more of sodium), and the entire recipe here (doubled from the original) contains 244 calories, 0.2g of fat, and just 39mg of sodium. I'll snack to that!