Salsa Verde
Tomatillos and green chilli charred under a grill and blitzed with coriander and lime. Twenty-five minutes and sharper than any red salsa.
Photograph credit: SALSA VERDE (image of salsa verde on Wikidata Q20747642) by No machine-readable author provided. JEDIKNIGHT1970 assumed (based on copyright claims). · CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Char the tomatillos rather than boiling them. Boiled, they are sour and one-dimensional; blistered black in patches under a hot grill, the sugars caramelise and the whole thing gains a smoky sweetness that balances the acid. Blend it only briefly — a salsa blitzed smooth goes pale and foamy, and it should stay a little coarse and dark green.
What People Ask
How long does Salsa Verde take to make?
10 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of cooking, so at least 25 minutes. The method also needs time for cooling, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 6.
How to Make Salsa Verde
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Heat the grill to its highest setting.
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Spread the tomatillos, chillies, onion wedges and unpeeled garlic on a foil-lined tray.
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Grill 8 minutes, until blistered and blackened in patches on top.
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Turn everything over and grill 5 minutes more.
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Squeeze the garlic out of its skins and discard the skins.
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Tip everything into a blender with any juices from the tray.
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Add the coriander, lime juice, salt and sugar.
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Pulse — do not blend smooth — until it is coarse and dark green, about 8 short pulses.
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Taste and correct the salt and lime, then cool before serving.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Worth Getting Right
- Char, do not boil.
- Pulse, do not blend, or it goes pale and foamy.
- Keep the tray juices — they are concentrated flavour.
If You're Missing Something
- Dried chilli flakes can stand in for the chillies. Heat varies a great deal between chillies and between jars, so start with a small pinch and add more to taste.
- Lemon is the everyday swap for lime in this kind of dish — the acidity plays the same role even though the flavour is not identical.
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Serve It With
Tortilla chips · Chilaquiles · Grilled pork
Leftovers and Storage
Keeps 5 days refrigerated and freezes 3 months.
Nutrition per Serving
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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