I love salsa.  It’s one of my Desert Island foods.  Living the rest of my life without salsa would be unthinkable.  It’s where a lot of the vegetable matter in my diet comes from, honestly–I hate tomatoes in a lot of forms, but love it in salsa.

I love my salsa to have a little heat, but I love it when there’s a nibble of sweetness in there.  So I love it when salsa has corn in it.  It’s the perfect little stir-in!  It adds an interesting bit of texture and balances out some of the heat I love so dearly.

On the flip side, a food I quite simply hate is beans.  I can’t stand them, and I won’t abide them in my beloved salsa.  So of course it’s the case that any time a commercial salsa adds in corn, they also chuck in beans.  So not cool.

Enter Trader Joe’s Tomato-Less Corn and Chile Salsa ($2.49, 13.75oz).  It’s just corn, onions, chiles, spices and love in a jar.  I knew it wouldn’t be enough for me on its own–there’s too much sweet to the light heat.  BUT mixed with a cheap jarred tomato salsa?  Perfecto! I can stir in as much of the corn salsa as I want, dialing in sweet to heat.

Why not add plain corn to jarred salsa?  Good question–by preserving the corn, some of its sweetness is actually cut and the kernels are a bit softer.  The TJ’s corn salsa also offers more chunks of peppers and onions, as well as some spice.  The most important property, though, is that I can store it in my fridge as long as the salsa, ready for late night snacking, any time.  The storage recommendation for salsa in the fridge is a month, so I feel like it’s a little more sensible than keeping around ears of corn on the hope that I’ll want salsa.

But speaking of corn-based salsa, here’s a recipe for Chipotle’s corn salsa.  I’ll be making this soon, and I think you should, too!