Easy Sofrito

Submitted by Vino p.o. prn

""This is the one indispensable, universal, un-live-withoutable recipe. Having said that, it is incredibly easy to make with ingredients you can find at the supermarket. And if you can’t find all the ingredients I list below see the note that follows for a very simple fix. What sofrito does is add freshness, herbal notes and zing to dishes—you can do that with the onion, garlic, bell pepper, cilantro and tomato alone. In my house, sofrito makes its way into everything from yellow rice, black bean soup, sauce for spaghetti and meatballs to braised chicken and sautéed shrimp. Not only that, it freezes beautifully, so in about In 10 minutes you can make enough sofrito to flavor a dozen dishes. I’m telling you, this stuff does everything but make the beds. You will change the way you cook. I guarantee it." ----Daisy Martinez"

 

• Ready In: 10mins
• Ingredients: 8
• Yields: 4 cups

ingredients

• 2 medium Spanish onions, cut into large chunks
• 3 -4 italian frying bell peppers or 3 -4 cubanelle peppers
• 16 -20 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 bunch fresh cilantro, washed
• 4 leaves culantro or 4 leaves fresh cilantro
• 3 -4 ripe plum tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks
• 7 -10 cachucha bell peppers (Ajicitos dulces)
• 1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut into large chunks

directions

1. Chop the onion and cubanelle or Italian peppers in the work bowl of a food processor until coarsely chopped.
2. With the motor running, add the remaining ingredients one at a time and process until smooth.
3. The sofrito will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. It also freezes beautifully.
4. *If you can’t find ajices dulces or culantro, don’t sweat. Up the amount of cilantro to 1 ½ bunches.

Reviews

[mammafishy]

I made this recipe this summer and froze it in ice cube trays. Just made Crock Pot Taco Soup by Lubie (#40022) using 10 of the cubes. The flavor went from wonderful to awesome by using the sofrito. Next year this will be one of my big garden recipes. Thanks so much for this great recipe!!

 

[Katzen]

Wow, this is an awesome, indispensible recipe! It is so delicious, and what a fantastic idea to throw into the freezer for use in making soups and salsas and all sorts of other wonderful things! I agree with Sugarpea - this is one of the most useful recipes I've found on Zaar!! Made for PAC Fall 2009.

 

[sugarpea]

Dh gives this 27*, Vino. I couldn't get a couple of the peppers so I used three jalapenos and some crushed red pepper. This is just packed with flavor without being so hot it overwhelms the dish you're using it on. We put ours with recipe #60675, using the sofrito to replace the salsa. Wonderful change from the usual. THAT review was written in Sept '07. I just had to add to that by saying that I used this batch of frozen sofrito all year long in anything that called for salsa, chopped chile pepper or was just plain bland. I've just made THIS year's batch and I doubled the written recipe because I know I'll use it twice as much now that I truly appreciate how versatile and valuable sofrito is. You gotta' try this, folks. And it IS soooo easy to do. One of the most valuable recipes I've ever found on Zaar and I've tried a lot of recipes.