Salsa Verde

  • A couple years ago I spent 10 minutes in a Whole Foods aisle googling reviews on green enchilada sauce and salsa verde.  Long ago I found THE BEST red enchilada sauce (shout out Hatch medium spice!) and realized what a game changer it is when cooking but had never found a solid salsa verde…  Fast forward a few years later and my uncle (who has a side hobby of gardening) dropped off 20lb of tomatillos at our house - I'm only slightly exaggerating.  I got to roasting and a few onions, peppers and food processing later realized that this is like incredibly easy to make and pretty difficult to mess up. 

    The most important tip is to trust yourself and believe that you make badass salsa verde, you do not need to spend $ on a jar at whole foods.  Salsa verde can be enjoyed with chips, used as an enchilada sauce or marinade for chile verde.

  • 2-2.5 cups of tomatillos husked

    1/2 - 2/3 of a white onion peeled and only chopped into in 1-2 large chunks

    5-10 whole garlic cloves peeled

    1 serrano pepper whole

    1-3 limes

    Salt

    Pepper

    1. Heat a large cast iron skillet or two (or griddle, etc equivalent) over a burner and once hot put your tomatillos, onion, half of the garlic cloves and the serrano pepper into the skillet.

    2. Let the produce char. The tomatillos will start to turn more of a yellow shade with black spots, rotate them and the pepper and onion as you see the char appear.

    3. Throw the whole unroasted cloves of garlic into a food processor and add the the tomatillos as they finish roasting (they should be yellow-green in color and feel cooked/tender).

    4. The onion and the pepper are your choice - I like mine about half roasted -half still firm. Once at desired level of roast chop into a few more pices(I include the seeds on my pepper but slice off the stem/top few milimeters of the pepper) and throw into your food processor.

    5. Juice limes into the food processor, you want roughly a little less than 1/4 cup of juice but you can always add more. Season with salt and pepper

    6. Pureé to desired consistency and serve with Taco Works.

  • Pair with a good smoked pulled pork to be pulled and shredded and then mixed with salsa verde and simmered just a bit longer until it melts in your mouth. - RS